CLASS DESCRIPTION
Did you know that singular you is a more recent addition to the English language than singular they? We can trace back singular they to the 1300s but singular you only replaced thou and thee in the 17th century. This is only one of many surprising facts that literary history can teach us about gender-inclusive pronouns. Where current debates about language policies might have us believe that pronouns that challenge the gender binary are strictly a 21st-century issue, celebrated authors from Margaret Cavendish to Aphra Behn to Virginia Woolf show us that gender non-conformity pronouns have not just been in use for centuries, but are also beautiful enough to have made it into some of the most celebrated novels and poems in English. In addition to learning about the fabulous history of gender non-conformity pronouns in Anglophone literature, we will also look at contemporary writing, current debates and social expectations surrounding pronouns and gender. The main take-away: Pronouns aren't just practical, they hold immense potential for innovation, creativity and beauty.
ABOUT OUR LECTURER
Dr Lena Mattheis (they/she) is a lecturer in contemporary literature at the University of Surrey. Lena specialises in queer and trans literature, narrative studies and literary geography and has recently completed a monograph titled Queer Forms and Pronouns: Gender Non-conformity in Anglophone Literature, which is forthcoming with Oxford University Press. Since April 2021, Lena has been hosting the Queer Lit podcast and has recorded conversations with Sara Ahmed, Susan Stryker, Sue Lanser, Jack Halberstam, Susan Stryker, Lee Edelman, Meg-John Barker and many other inspiring scholars. In addition to another monograph, Translocality in Contemporary City Novels (Palgrave, 2021), Lena’s work has been published in journals such as Narrative, Transnational Literature, Literary Geographies, or WSQ.
INSTAGRAM: @lena_mattheis
BLUESKY: @lenamattheis.bsky.social
WEBSITE: https://lenamattheis.wordpress.com/
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AUTUMN/WINTER TERM 2025
Monday 15th September
Luisa-Maria MacCormack (she/her)
Female Sexuality and the Male Gaze
Monday 22nd September
Dr. Kate Pickering (she/her)
Feminist Religious Worldbuilding in Contemporary Art
Monday 29th September
Julia Kotziamani (she/her)
Misogynist Bureaucracies: Administrative Erasure and the Feminist Body
Monday 6th October
Noelle Perdue (she/her)
The Evolution of Post-AI Pornography
Monday 13th October
Erin James (she/they)
The Real Housewives of Racist TV Tropes: a Black Feminist Reading of Reality TV
Monday 20th October
Jo Harrison & Holly Isard
RECORDING ONLY - Breastfeeding as work: the contradictions of breastfeeding under capitalism
Monday 27th October
Luisa-Maria MacCormack (she/her)
The Vagina Dentata: Myths of The Monstrous Feminine
Monday 3rd November
Catherine McCormack (she/her)
Eve and the Serpent: Snake Symbolism and Repressed Histories of the Feminine
Monday 10th November
Dr. Lena Mattheis (they/she)
From Thou to They: Gender Nonconformity Pronouns in Literary History
Monday 17th November
Giulia Palladini (she/her)
The Feminist Before the Archive
Monday 24th November
Gudrun Filipska (she/her)
Eco-Feminist Art and Science Fiction
Monday 1st December
Anna Titov (she/her)
Clarice Lispector: Existentialism and Dark Feminisms
Monday 8th December
Jennifer Jasmine White (she/her)
Fashioning Labour: Feminist Art and The Industrial Body
Monday 15th December
Anna Johnson (they/them)
Writing Motherhood: An Embodied Understanding of our Own Oppression
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