Dr. Gillian Harkins

Biography

Gillian Harkins is a Professor in the Department of English at the University of Washington. She received her B.A. in English and Women's Studies from Wellesley College in 1994 and completed her Ph.D. in English at the University of California, Berkeley in 2002. Her research interests include 21st Century American culture, feminism, feminist theory, law, novel/prose fiction, popular culture, and queer studies. Harkins specializes in late 20th and early 21st century United States literature and culture, exploring how gender, sexuality, and race intersect with cultural forms and social formations. Her work includes teaching undergraduate and graduate courses on Cultural Studies, Theories of the Novel, Contemporary Literature, and Gender and Sexuality. She has published books including 'Everybody’s Family Romance: Reading Incest in Neoliberal America' (University of Minnesota Press, 2009) and 'Virtual Pedophilia: Profiling Sex Offenders in U.S. Security Culture' (Duke University Press, 2020), which investigate the dynamics of power and sexuality in American cultural logics. Additionally, Harkins has been involved in higher education prison programs in the Puget Sound area, contributing to education justice and carceral abolition.

Research Interests