Education
B.A. University of Washington
M.A. Columbia University
Ph.D. Columbia University
Research Interests
Medieval and early modern history; European History; Gender, Sex, and Sexuality; History of Science and Medicine; Critical Animal Studies; Visual Studies; Contemporary Queer, Feminist, and Transgender Studies; Contemporary Art and Photography.
Biographical Notes
Leah DeVun is an Associate Professor of History at Rutgers University, New Brunswick. DeVun’s work focuses on the history of gender, sexuality, science, and medicine in pre-modern Europe, as well as on contemporary queer and transgender studies. DeVun is the author of The Shape of Sex: Nonbinary Gender from Genesis to the Renaissance (Columbia UP, 2021), Prophecy, Alchemy, and the End of Time (Columbia UP, 2009), and co-editor (with Zeb Tortorici) of Trans*historicities, a special issue of TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly (2018) devoted to transgender history before the advent of current categories and terminologies of gender. DeVun has also written articles for GLQ, WSQ, Osiris, Journal of the History of Ideas, postmedieval, and Radical History Review, among other publications. DeVun is the recipient of fellowships and grants from the National Science Foundation, Huntington Library, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, American Philosophical Society, and Stanford Humanities Center.
DeVun is also a multi-media artist and curator whose work explores queer, feminist, and gender nonconforming history. DeVun’s artwork and interviews have been published in Artforum, People, Huffington Post, Slate, Art Papers, New York Times, LARB, Hyperallergic, and Modern Painters, and exhibited at venues including the ONE Archives Gallery and Museum at the University of Southern California, Houston Center for Photography, Blanton Museum, Leslie-Lohman Museum, and Tang Teaching Museum at Skidmore College. DeVun has curated exhibitions and programs at the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art at the Brooklyn Museum, NYU’s Fales Library and Special Collections, and other venues.