Introducing Assistant Professor of Queer Studies rl Goldberg

rl Golberg’s research and teaching center on trans and queer studies, phenomenology, pedagogy, and 19th- and 20th-century U.S. literature.
 
Goldberg has a B.A. from Harvard College, where they focused on English and creative writing. After graduating, Goldberg moved to Gainesville, to work on an M.F.A. in fiction at the University of Florida. Following that, they earned a joint Ph.D. in English and humanistic studies from Princeton. They then spent two years in the Society of Fellows at Dartmouth.
 
“When it comes to teaching, I’m most passionate about working with archives and theory,” Goldberg says.
 
What is your teaching experience?
 
When I began college, I started teaching in carceral facilities. Teaching in higher ed in prison was one of the reasons I chose Princeton for grad school: there’s this magnificent program called PTI, the Prison Teaching Initiative, that I wanted to be part of. I volunteered with PTI for many years, teaching courses in writing, gender studies, and contemporary literature. I’ve also had the pleasure of teaching classes in these fields at Princeton and Dartmouth.
 
Have you been in any other professions that impacted how you teach and learn?
 
Before coming to Hampshire, I returned to Princeton for a year to work as an instructional specialist at PTI. I felt incredibly fortunate to go back to a community of teachers and learners who taught me so much while I was a graduate student.
 
Tell us about your work and publications.
 
I’ve published a few articles about trans epistemology, pedagogy, autotheory, pornography, and trans sleaze books. I occasionally write public scholarship about writers I enjoy. In my former life as a fiction writer, I had a few stories appear here and there. My first monograph, I Changed My Sex! Pedagogy and Trans Narrative, is forthcoming from Columbia University Press. I’m also coediting a volume, under advance contract with Fordham University Press, with my colleague Alex Brostoff called Reassignments: Trans and Sex from the Clinical to the Critical.
 
What are you looking forward to at Hampshire?
 
There is so much I’m looking forward to at Hampshire: working with its students, faculty, and staff; teaching with its new curricular model; learning about the passions of folks on campus; and talking about books, archives, running, queerness, and pretty much anything else.