Show Notes
You’ve read Maggie Nelson’s The Argonauts but have you heard of the scholar who puts the auto in theories? Meet Alex Brostoff, my new favourite autotheorist. Alex is here to clear up common misconceptions about autotheories and tell us more about biomythography, teoría de la noche, and reading beside. I was also intrigued to learn about intertextual kinship and hear Alex’s (beautifully phrased) thoughts on co-writing and co-translating.
References:
Alex Brostoff and Lauren Fournier (eds) Autotheory (special issue of ASAP/Journal, 2021) Alex Brostoff and Vilashini Cooppan (eds) Autotheories (MIT Press, 2025) Alex Brostoff’s Unruly Relations: A Critical Reframing of Autotheory (Columbia University Press, forthcoming) Alex Brostoff and rl Goldberg (eds) Trans Literature (special issue of College Literature, 2025) Alex Brostoff and rl Goldberg (eds) Reassignments: Trans and Sex from the Clinical to the Critical (Fordham University Press, forthcoming) Stryker, Susan. "Transgender studies: Queer theory's evil twin." GLQ: A journal of lesbian and gay studies 10.2 (2004): 212-215. Intertextual kinship in Brostoff’s “An Autotheory of Intertextual Kinship: Ambivalent Bodies in the Work of Maggie Nelson and Paul Preciado.” Special issue, “Dissident Self-Narratives: Radical and Queer Life Writing,” ed. Aude Haffen. Synthesis: An Anglophone Journal of Comparative Literary Studies 14 (2021): 91-115. Kai Minosh Pyle trans*temporal kinship Maggie Nelson’s The Argonauts Roland Barthes Paul Preciado’s Testo Junkie On the Eve of This Death Freccero, Carla. "The ‘Auto’ of Theory." in Autotheories (MIT Press, 2025) Foucault Derrida Gloria Anzaldúa This Bridge Called My Back Borderlands/La Frontera Theory in the flesh Autohistoria-teoría Audre Lorde’s Zami Biomythography María Moreno’s teoría de la noche (theory of the night) Sedgwick’s reading beside Lauren Berlant and Kathleen Steward’s The Hundreds Heather Love John Money Richard Green Judith Butler’s Who’s Afraid of Gender Cameron Awkward-Rich Stephanie Burt Liz Rose Nat Rivkin Jordy Rosenberg Trish Salah torrin a. greathouse Cole Rizki TSQ @alextakesfotos (on Instagram) @AlexBrostoff (on X) @alexbrostoff.bsky.social (on Bluesky) TravestiAmara Moira, “Loose Tongues,” a selection from Neca (2021), translated by Jesse Rothbard and edited by Cole Rizki, TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly (forthcoming, 2025).
Questions you should be able to respond to after listening: What is autotheory and why might Alex prefer the plural autotheories? What are some related concepts or theories? Which thinkers do we commonly associate with autotheories? Name at least two texts that Alex posits as central to autotheories. Alex speaks a lot about co-writing. Have you ever experienced “being deep in the trenches of someone else’s sentences”? How do you co-write?
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