The Shape of Sex: A history of nonbinary gender before modernity

Professor Leah DeVun

Professor Leah DeVun of Rutgeres University focuses on ideas and individuals who allegedly combined or crossed sex or gender categories in Europe from 200–1400 C.E. Ranging widely across premodern European thought and culture, she explores how and why efforts to define ‘the human’ so often hinged on ideas about nonbinary sex and gender.

In a moment when questions about sex, gender, and identity have become incredibly urgent, this lecture will cast new light on a complex and often contradictory past, and show how pre-modern thinkers created a system of sex and embodiment that both anticipates and challenges modern beliefs about what it means to be male, female—and human.

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Leah DeVun is Professor of History and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Rutgers University in the United States. DeVun is the author of many books and articles most recently, of ‘The Shape of Sex: Nonbinary Gender from Genesis to the Renaissance’, and co-editor (with Zeb Tortorici) of ‘Trans*historicities’, a special issue of TSQ devoted to transgender history.

DeVun’s work has been featured  widely including in the New York Times, Artforum, Huffington Post, and she has lectured across the United States and in Europe.