Gregory Tomso

Assistant Professor

Gregory Tomso received his Ph.D. in English from Duke University in 2001. His research interests include American Literature, Queer and Feminist Theory, and the cultural study of illness and disease. His recent work analyzes scientific and popular discussions of barebacking, bug chasing, gift giving and other emerging sexual practices particular to the age of HIV and AIDS. He has also published articles examining the history of leprosy in the United States and the contemporary politics of queer reading. Other current projects include essays on the emergence of empathy in the work of nineteenth-century New England writer Mary Wilkins Freeman and the aesthetics of selfhood in the diary of Alice of James. He teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in nineteenth-century American Studies, poststructuralist theories of gender and sexuality, critical methodology and the intersection of science and culture. In his free time, Professor Tomso is also an amateur ceramic artist. His first exhibition, a modern interpretation of pre-Columbian ceramics, was recently held at the University of West Florida.

Link to Articles:

Reading Queerly: A Presentist's Confession