KJ Cerankowski

  • Associate Professor of Comparative American Studies and Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies

Areas of Study

Education

  • PhD, Stanford University, 2014
  • MA, Stanford University, 2010
  • BA, University of Southern California, 2004

Biography

KJ Cerankowski is an interdisciplinary scholar and writer with research interests in asexuality, trauma theory, archive studies, queer theory, and transgender studies. He is the author of Suture: Trauma and Trans Becoming (Punctum, 2021), which received the 2021 Queer Indie Award for Nonfiction, was named among the Best of 2020-2021 Nonfiction by Entropy Magazine, and was shortlisted for the Association for the Study of the Arts of the Present 2022 Book Prize. His second book, Nothing Wanting: Asexuality and the Matter of Absence is forthcoming with University of Minnesota Press. Cerankowski is also the co-editor of Asexualities: Feminist and Queer Perspectives (Routledge, 2014), which will be re-released in a revised and expanded ten-year anniversary edition in spring 2024.

His scholarly writing has also appeared in journals such as WSQ: Women’s Studies Quarterly, Feminist Studies, Memory Studies, and Journal of Visual Culture, as well as in several edited collections. His essay, “The ‘End’ of Orgasm: The Erotics of Durational Pleasures,” won the 2021 Symonds Essay Prize and was published in Studies in Gender and Sexuality.

Cerankowski is also a poet and creative writer, and his work has been published in DIAGRAM, Pleiades, Sinister Wisdom, Identity Theory, and The Account, among others.

Cerankowski is currently the Richard H. Brown/William Lloyd Barber Fellow at the Newberry Library, where he is working on his third monograph, Roar of Wanting: Touching Trans History. He has also received a Harvard-Radcliffe Institute Schlesinger Library Research Support Grant and will be a Sinclair Lewis Fellow at Yale University’s Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library in Summer/Fall 2024.

Fall 2025

Introduction to Comparative American Studies — CAST 100

Introduction to Transgender Studies — CAST 219

Introduction to Transgender Studies — GSFS 219

Notes

KJ Cerankowski's Book a Contender for ASAP Book Prize

September 22, 2022

KJ Cerankowski's book Suture: Trauma and Trans Becoming was shortlisted for the ASAP (Association for the Study of the Arts of the Present) 2022 Book Prize.

Entropy Magazine Recognizes KJ Cerankowski's Book

December 13, 2021

Assistant Professor KJ Cerankowski's book, Suture: Trauma and Trans Becoming, named amongst Best Nonfiction of 2020-2021 by Entropy Magazine.

 

 

KJ Cerankowski Publishes Book

November 15, 2021

Assistant Professor of Comparative American Studies and Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies KJ Cerankowski has published the book, Suture: Trauma and Trans Becoming. The book combines memoir, lyrical essay, and cultural criticism, to stitch together an embodied history of trauma and its ongoing impacts on the lived realities of trans, queer, and other marginalized subjects.

 

 

KJ Cerankowski's essay wins Symonds Prize

September 27, 2021

Assistant Professor of Comparative American Studies and Gender, Sexuality, & Feminist Studies KJ Cerankowski's essay, "The 'End' of Orgasm: The Erotics of Durational Pleasures" won the 2021 Symonds Prize and was published in the most recent issue of Studies in Gender and Sexuality.

 

News

2022 Winter Term Recap

March 11, 2022

More than 2,290 students explored projects and research opportunities outside of their normal course of study during Winter Term. In this wrap-up gallery we look back at some of the group projects students performed.

A Conversation with KJ Cerankowski

January 11, 2018

KJ Cerankowski, assistant professor of gender, sexuality, and feminist studies (GSFS) and comparative American studies (CAS), discusses one pivotal experience in a feminist bookstore, asexuality, and the value of GSFS and CAS in a variety of careers.