RESEARCH INTERESTS
Leah DeVun’s work focuses on the history of premodern Europe, gender and sexuality, and science and medicine, as well as on contemporary queer and trans studies. DeVun’s most recent book, The Shape of Sex: Nonbinary Gender from Genesis to the Renaissance (Columbia University Press, 2021), received the Award for Excellence in Historical Studies from the American Academy of Religion, the Margaret W. Rossiter Prize from the History of Science Society, and the Haskins Medal from the Medieval Academy of America, the organization’s most distinguished award. DeVun is also author of Prophecy, Alchemy, and the End of Time (Columbia University Press, 2009), and co-editor of an issue of TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly on “Trans*Historicities” (Duke University Press, 2018). DeVun’s essays, articles, and reviews have appeared in a range of venues, including GLQ, Osiris, Radical History Review, Women’s Studies Quarterly, Journal of the History of Ideas, Science, Journal of the History of Sexuality, and postmedieval. DeVun’s research has been funded by fellowships from the Huntington Library, American Philosophical Society, and Stanford Humanities Center.
DeVun is also a multi-media artist and curator whose work explores queer, feminist, and trans communities and histories. DeVun’s artwork has been exhibited internationally and a current photography project, “Resemblance,” was designated a finalist for the 2024 Aperture Portfolio Prize. DeVun’s work has been featured in Artforum, People, LA Review of Books, JSTOR Daily, Huffington Post, Slate, Out, Art Papers, Hyperallergic, Feature Shoot, PhotoVogue, Redbook, Parents, LA Weekly, Modern Painters, and other publications.
CLASSES TAUGHT
- 510:101 Development of Europe I
- 506:401:01 Science, Sex, and Society
- 506:401:15 The Body and Society
- 510:211 Harvest of the Middle Ages
- 510:560:01 Readings in Women’s and Gender History
- 510:539:01 Colloquium in Women’s and Gender History: The Body
- 510:539:02 Colloquium in Women’s and Gender History: Queer History
PUBLICATIONS
The Shape of Sex: Nonbinary Gender from Genesis to the Renaissance
Columbia University Press, 2020
Trans*historicities, special issue of Transgender Studies Quarterly
Duke University Press, 2018
Prophecy, Alchemy, and the End of Time: John of Rupescissa in the Late Middle Ages
Columbia University Press, 2009
Books
- The Shape of Sex: Nonbinary Gender from Genesis to the Renaissance (Columbia University
Press; projected publication date is Dec. 2020). - Trans*historicities, special issue of TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly 5:4 (2018) (co-editor,
with Zeb Tortorici). - Prophecy, Alchemy, and the End of Time: John of Rupescissa in the Late Middle Ages (New York: Columbia University Press, 2009).
*Winner of the John Nicholas Brown Prize for Prophecy, Alchemy and the End of Time, 2013 (Best Book from Medieval Academy of America)
Selected Articles and Book Chapters
- “Mapping the Boundaries of Sex in Marvels of the East,” in Trans Before Trans, ed. Greta LaFleur, Masha Raskolnikov and Anna Klosowska (forthcoming).
- “Heavenly Hermaphrodites: Sexual Difference at the Beginning and End of Time,” postmedieval: a journal of medieval cultural studies 9 (2018): 132-146.
- “I Object,” ASAP/Journal: The Association for the Study of the Arts of the Present 1:2 (2016): 201-6.
- “Erecting Sex: Hermaphrodites and the Medieval Science of Surgery,” Scientific Masculinities, ed. Erika Lorraine Milam and Robert A. Nye, Osiris 30:1 (2015): 17-37.
- “Images from the Hannah Montana Series,” WSQ: Women’s Studies Quarterly 43:1-2 (2015): 83-6.
- “Archives Behaving Badly,” (with Michael Jay McClure) Radical History Review 120 (2014): 121-30.
- “Friendship Books,” in Public Collectors, ed. Marc Fischer (New York: Inventory Press, 2014), 101-12.
- “The Jesus Hermaphrodite: Science and Sex Difference in Premodern Europe,” Journal of the History of Ideas 69:2 (2008): 193-218.
- “‘Human Heaven’: John of Rupescissa’s Alchemy at the End of the World,” in History in the Comic Mode, ed. Rachel Fulton and Bruce Holsinger (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007): 251-261. (Peer reviewed.) *Winner of the 2006 Jerry Stannard International Memorial Award for the Best Article of the Year
- Multiple entries, Cambridge Dictionary of Christianity, ed. Daniel Patte et al. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010).
- Multiple entries, LGBTQ America Today, ed. John Hawley (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2008).
- “Hermaphrodites,” in Women and Gender in Medieval Europe: An Encyclopedia, ed. Margaret Schaus et al. (New York: Routledge, 2006): 362-363.
AWARDS AND HONORS
- John Nicholas Brown Prize for Prophecy, Alchemy and the End of Time, 2013 (Best Book from Medieval Academy of America)
- Faculty Fellowship, Stanford Humanities Center, Stanford University, 2011-2012
- Charles Donald O'Malley Fellowship, David Geffen School of Medicine and Louise M. Darling Biomedical Library History and Special Collection for the Sciences, UCLA, 2010-2011
- Visiting Scholar Fellowship, University of Texas Medical Branch, 2008
- Franklin Research Grant, American Philosophical Society, 2008
- Solmsen Fellowship, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2006-2007
- Jerry Stannard International Memorial Award for the Best Article of the Year (in the History of Materia medica, Medicinal Botany, Pharmacy, and Folklore of Drug Therapy before 1700), 2006, for “’Human Heaven’: John of Rupescissa’s Alchemy at the End of the World”
- Summer Fellowship, UCLA Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2005
- Francis Bacon Fellowship, Huntington Library, 2004
