Nat Rivkin | The Program in Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s StudiesThe Center for Research in Feminist, Queer, and Transgender Studies

Graduate Associate, The Program in Gender, Sexuality, and Women's Studies

Email

nrivkin@sas.upenn.edu

Office Location

BENN 216

I am a PhD Candidate in English at Penn. My research interests include premodern poetry, trans studies, and the history of sexuality. I am working on a dissertation that examines gender variance, race, and classical reception history in late medieval and early modern England. The project focuses on four specific figures: the monstrous birth, the virgin, the hermaphrodite, and the angel. I show how these literary figures challenge the fantasy of premodern England as a place where knights were knights, ladies were ladies, and everyone was white.

I received a BA in English and Gender & Women's Studies from Pomona College. I hold graduate certificates from the Program in Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies and Penn's Center for Teaching and Learning. I was a coordinator of the Gen/Sex Working Group (2020–22) and the Med/Ren Working Group (2022–23). Throughout 2022–24, I was a Graduate Associate for the Philadelphia Trans Oral History Project run by the Center for Research in Feminist, Queer, and Transgender Studies. I am currently a Graduate Associate for the GSWS Program. My writing has appeared or is forthcoming in Exemplaria, Medieval Ecocriticisms, and the Routledge Companion to Queer Literary Studies.