Rachel A. Lewis

Rachel A. Lewis

Rachel A. Lewis

Director of Undergraduate Programs

Director of Graduate Programs

Professor

feminist and queer theory; ecofeminism and animal rights; human rights; race and immigration; transnational sexualities; media and cultural studies; disability studies

Rachel Lewis earned a Ph.D. from Cornell University and is an Associate Professor in the Women and Gender Studies Program at George Mason University. She is also the graduate director for the graduate certificate and MAIS concentration in Women and Gender Studies. Prior to joining George Mason, she was a Postdoctoral Fellow in Transnational Sexualities in the Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program at the University of Connecticut. Her research and teaching interests include transnational feminisms, queer theory, ecofeminism and animal rights, media and cultural studies, race and immigration, human rights, and feminist and queer disability studies. She is currently working on a book length manuscript about women, animals, and the feminization of interspecies care work, tentatively titled, Feline Animacies: Interspecies Care and Solidarity in a Post-Pandemic World.

Selected Publications

“Queering Deportability: The Politics of Lesbian Anti-Deportation Activism.” Sexualities (2021).

“Vulnerability, Pleasure, and Animal Rights." Women’s Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal 50/8: 829-836.

“Precarious Temporalities: Refugee Art, Gender, and Migration,” in Marie José-Ruiz and Bénédicte Miyamoto, eds., Art and Migration (Manchester University Press, 2021).

“Queer Migration in Homonationalist Times,” GLQ: A Journal of Gay and Lesbian Studies 25/4 (2019): 649-656.

“LGBTQ Migration Crises,” in Cecelia Menjivar, Marie Ruiz and Immanuel Ness, eds., The Handbook of Migration Crises (Oxford University Press, 2019).

With Wendy S. Hesford, “Queering Human Rights: The Transgender Child,” in Crystal Parikh, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Human Rights and Literature (Cambridge University Press, 2018).

“And Suddenly I Became a Lesbian!”: Performing Lesbian Identity in the Political Asylum Process,” in Bridget Haas and Amy Shuman, eds., Political Asylum and the Politics of Suspicion (Ohio University Press, 2018).

“Lesbian Cinema Post-Feminism: Ageism, Difference, and Desire,” in E. Ann Kaplan, Patrice Petro, Dijana Jelača, and Kristin Hole, eds.,Routledge Companion to Cinema and Gender (New York and London: Rutledge, 2016).

With Wendy S. Hesford, “Mobilizing Vulnerability: New Directions in Transnational Feminisms and Human Rights,” in Feminist Formations 28/1. Special issue guest edited by Wendy S. Hesford and Rachel Lewis.

“Queering Vulnerability: Visualizing Black Lesbian Desire in Post-Apartheid South Africa,” in Feminist Formations 28/1 (2016).

 “‘Gay? Prove It’: The Politics of Queer Anti-Deportation Activism,” Sexualities 17/8 (2014): 958-975. Special issue guest edited by Rachel Lewis and Nancy A. Naples, “Queer Migration, Asylum, and Displacement.”

“Deportable Subjects: Lesbians and Political Asylum,” Feminist Formations 25/2 (2013): 173-193. Special issue, “Feminists Interrogate States of Emergency.”

“Towards a Transnational Lesbian Cinema,” Journal of Lesbian Studies 16/3 (2012): 273-290. Special issue, “Global Lesbian Cinema.”

“The Cultural Politics of Lesbian Asylum: Angelina Maccarone’s Unveiled (2005) and the Case of the Lesbian Asylum-Seeker,” International Feminist Journal of Politics 12/3-4 (2010): 424-443. Special issue, “New Directions in Feminism and Human Rights.”

 

Courses Taught

WMST 100: Global Representations of Women

WMST 200: Introduction to Women and Gender Studies           

WMST 330: Theoretical Perspectives in Women and Gender Studies

WMST 404/504: Gender, Sexuality and Disability

WMST 409/509: Sexuality, Race, and Immigration

WMST 450/550: Gender, Race, and Animal Rights

WMST 450/550: Lesbian and Bisexual Theories

WMST 450/550: Women and the Media

WMST 600: Transnational Sexualities

WMST 602/890: Queer Theory

WMST 608: Gender, Sexuality and Human Rights

WMST 630: Feminist Theories

MAIS 797: Interdisciplinary Studies Research Proposal

Education

Ph.D. from Cornell University

Recent Presentations

Featured Speaker, Cross-Disciplinary Digital Dialogues, “Disability, Sexuality and Human Rights,” Global Arts and Humanities Society of Fellows, Ohio State University, May 2, 2021.

Featured Speaker, Cross-Disciplinary Digital Dialogues, “Disability, Sexuality and Human Rights,” Global Arts and Humanities Society of Fellows, Ohio State University, October 21, 2020.

“Queering Deportability: The Politics of Lesbian Anti-Deportation Activism,” Johns Hopkins University, April 3, 2019.

“Defective Citizens: Disability, Immigration and the Afterlife of Eugenics,” Annual Disability Studies Lecture, Wesleyan University, April 26, 2018.

“Precarious Temporalities: Neoliberalism, Sexual Citizenship and the Global Deportation Regime,” Women’s and Gender Studies Program, Washington and Lee University, March 30, 2017.

“Detention, Deportation, and Asylum,” Keynote Lecture, “Keywords in Migration Studies Conference,” University of California, Santa Cruz, May 6-7, 2016.

“Queer Intimacies: Visualizing Black Lesbian Desire in Post-Apartheid South Africa,” Invited Lecture, Women’s and Gender Studies Program, Washington and Lee University, March 24, 2016.

“They Wanted Me to Prove that I’m a Lesbian but they Wouldn’t Tell Me How I Could”: The Problem of Credibility in Lesbian Asylum Narratives,” Featured Speaker, Political Asylum and the Politics of Suspicion Symposium, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, March, 2015.

“Queering Vulnerability: Re-conceptualizing the Erotic in Political Asylum Narratives,” Featured Speaker, Global Human Rights, Sexualities, Vulnerabilities Symposium, The Ohio State University, April 12–13, 2013.