Ann Pellegrini

Professor, Performance Studies & Social and Cultural Analysis

Ann Pellegrini

Ann Pellegrini writes, teaches, and practices across a number of interdisciplinary fields and conversations: queer and trans studies; gender and performance; psychoanalytic studies; trauma studies; religion, sexuality, and U.S. public life; comparative secularisms; affect studies; and Foucault studies. They are also a licensed psychoanalyst with a private practice in New York City.

They are the author of Performance Anxieties: Staging Psychoanalysis, Staging Race (Routledge, 1997); co-author, with Janet R. Jakobsen, of Love the Sin: Sexual Regulation and the Limits of Religious Tolerance (NYU Press, 2003; Beacon Press, 2004); and co-author, with Michael Bronski and Michael Amico, of “You Can Tell Just By Looking” and 20 Other Myths about LGBT Life and People (Beacon Press, 2013). “You Can Tell Just By Looking” was a finalist for the 2014 Lambda Literary Award for Best LGBT Non-Fiction.

Pellegrini’s most recent book is Gender Without Identity (Unconscious in Translation, 2023), co-authored with Avgi Saketopoulou. Gender Without Identity received the 2024 IPPY Awards Silver Medal for LGBTQ+ Non-fiction. She has also published two anthologies: Queer Theory and the Jewish Question, co-edited with Daniel Boyarin and Danial Itzkovitz (Columbia University Press, 2003); and Secularisms, co-edited with Janet R. Jakobsen (Duke University Press, 2008). Pellegrini is founding co-editor, with José Esteban Muñoz, of the “Sexual Cultures” Series, at New York University Press, which she now co-edits with Joshua Chambers-Letson and Tavia Nyong’o.

Education

Harvard University

PhD 1994 - Cultural Studies

Cambridge, Massachusetts

 

Harvard University

Master of Arts 1992 - Study of Religion

Cambridge, Massachusetts

 

Oxford University

Bachelor of Arts 1988 - Literae Humaniores

Oxford, United Kingdom

 

Harvard-Radcliffe College

Bachelor of Arts 1986 - Classics

Cambridge, Massachusetts

Areas of Research/Interest

• RELIGION, SEXUALITY, AND U.S. PUBLIC LIFE 

• PSYCHOANALYSIS AND CULTURE 

• TRAUMA STUDIES 

• QUEER THEORY 

• GENDER AND PERFORMANCE 

• AFFECT STUDIES 

• PERFORMANCE AND LAW 

• CRITICAL THEORIES OF SECULARISM 

• RELIGION AND BIOPOLITICS

• FOUCAULT STUDIES

 

Awards & Distinctions

• SILVER MEDAL, INDEPENDENT PUBLISHERS BOOK AWARDS, LGBTQ+

NON-FICTION, FOR GENDER WITHOUT IDENTITY (2024)

• FIRST TIRESIAS PAPER AWARD, SEXUAL & GENDER DIVERSITY STUDIES

COMMITTEE, INTERNATIONAL PSYCHOANALYTICAL ASSOCIATION (2021).

• FINALIST, LAMBDA LITERARY AWARD FOR BEST LGBT NON-FICTION,

FOR “YOU CAN TELL JUST BY LOOKING” AND 20 OTHER MYTHS ABOUT

LGBT LIFE AND PEOPLE (2014)

• FACULTY FELLOW, CHARLES WARREN CENTER FOR STUDIES IN

AMERICAN HISTORY, HARVARD UNIVERSITY (2012-13)

• CONSTANCE ROURKE PRIZE FOR BEST ARTICLE PUBLISHED

IN AMERICAN QUARTERLY, AMERICAN STUDIES ASSOCIATION (2008)

• FULBRIGHT-FREUD VISITING SCHOLAR OF PSYCHOANALYSIS,

AUSTRIAN FULBRIGHT COMMISSION AND SIGMUND-FREUD-SOCIETY

(2007)

• ARNOLD GROSSMAN AWARD FOR OUTSTANDING FACULTY/STAFF

SERVICE TO THE LGBT COMMUNITY, NYU (2005)

• FIRST ANNUAL BGLT FACULTY ALLY AWARD, HARVARD UNIVERSITY

BISEXUAL, GAY, LESBIAN, TRANSGENDER, AND SUPPORTERS

ASSOCIATION (1999)