Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Lecturer
they/she
Tesla Cariani is a Lecturer of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Boston University. As a scholar and teacher of queer and trans visual cultures, Cariani’s research on contemporary media and literature examines how gender, sexuality, and race are fundamentally shaped by the visual. Cariani holds a PhD in English and as well as a certificate in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies from Emory University (2021). Before joining the WGS Program at Boston University, Cariani was a Postdoctoral Fellow at Rice University (2022-2024) and a Visiting Assistant Professor at Emory University (2021-2022).
Cariani’s current book project, Visibility Will Not Save Us: Violence, Embodiment, and Affect in Queer and Trans Media, grapples with the potential violence of—and cultural desire for—queer and trans visibility. This work traces aesthetic and narrative strategies that challenge representational conventions to offer new politics and possibilities for queer and trans life. Cariani’s writing has been published in Parallax, PMLA, The LGBTQ Comics Studies Reader (winner of the 2023 Eisner Award for Best Academic/Scholarly Work), and The Routledge Handbook of Trans Literature.
Teaching & Research Interests:
- Queer and Trans Theory
- LGBTQIA2S+ Media & Literature
- Visual Culture Studies
- Affect Theory
- Postcolonial Studies
- Critical Disability Studies
- Popular Culture