Document
Chris Coffman
Election
Position
Name
Chris Coffman
Candidate statement
Professor of English and Affiliated Faculty with the Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program, University of Alaska Fairbanks
I am running for the position of Vice Program Chair to support the Modernist Studies Association’s goal of fostering interdisciplinary approaches to late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century literature, art, music, and performance. My own research and teaching situate twentieth- and twenty-first century literature and the visual arts at the intersection of feminist theory, queer theory, trans theory, and the psychological disciplines. I served as Chair of my department from 2020-2024 and especially enjoyed tasks such as planning the class schedule, which involved reviewing faculty members’ requests with an eye to offering a diverse range of topics at varied times to support our curricula in composition, literature, and creative writing. Moreover, I have organized sessions on Modernism, Queer Studies, and Trans Studies for the MSA, the MLA, and the American Comparative Literature Association (on whose Gender Studies Committee I served from 2012-2019). As Vice Program Chair for the MSA, I would employ this skill set with an eye to furthering the conference’s transnational, intersectional, and interdisciplinary programming in gender, sexuality, race, ability, postcoloniality, and decoloniality; and in areas such as environmental, health, and medical humanities that foster dialogue with the social and natural sciences.
Four recent publications demonstrating an interest in Modernist Studies:
-"H.D.'s Nonbinary Poetics," forthcoming in the Winter 2026 issue of the Journal of Modern Literature
-"Psychoanalysis and Queer Sexualities: Djuna Barnes' Nightwood" in The Bloomsbury Handbook to Literature and Psychoanalysis (Bloomsbury Academic, 2023)
-"Queer Theory" in The Oxford Handbook of Virginia Woolf (Oxford UP, 2021)
-Gertrude Stein's Transmasculinity (Edinburgh UP, 2018 and 2019)
I am running for the position of Vice Program Chair to support the Modernist Studies Association’s goal of fostering interdisciplinary approaches to late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century literature, art, music, and performance. My own research and teaching situate twentieth- and twenty-first century literature and the visual arts at the intersection of feminist theory, queer theory, trans theory, and the psychological disciplines. I served as Chair of my department from 2020-2024 and especially enjoyed tasks such as planning the class schedule, which involved reviewing faculty members’ requests with an eye to offering a diverse range of topics at varied times to support our curricula in composition, literature, and creative writing. Moreover, I have organized sessions on Modernism, Queer Studies, and Trans Studies for the MSA, the MLA, and the American Comparative Literature Association (on whose Gender Studies Committee I served from 2012-2019). As Vice Program Chair for the MSA, I would employ this skill set with an eye to furthering the conference’s transnational, intersectional, and interdisciplinary programming in gender, sexuality, race, ability, postcoloniality, and decoloniality; and in areas such as environmental, health, and medical humanities that foster dialogue with the social and natural sciences.
Four recent publications demonstrating an interest in Modernist Studies:
-"H.D.'s Nonbinary Poetics," forthcoming in the Winter 2026 issue of the Journal of Modern Literature
-"Psychoanalysis and Queer Sexualities: Djuna Barnes' Nightwood" in The Bloomsbury Handbook to Literature and Psychoanalysis (Bloomsbury Academic, 2023)
-"Queer Theory" in The Oxford Handbook of Virginia Woolf (Oxford UP, 2021)
-Gertrude Stein's Transmasculinity (Edinburgh UP, 2018 and 2019)
Candidate CV