The NEXUS Interdisciplinary Conference is excited to welcome Eagan Dean as the Keynote Speaker for 2026. The event will take place on Friday, April 17th at 1:30 p.m. in Student Union 362 B.
“Literary Performance, Community Practice: Reading Black Women Critics of Early Philadelphia as Gender Theorists”
Eagan Dean is an Assistant Professor of English at the College of Wooster, where he teaches nineteenth century American literature, supervises undergraduate researchers, and contributes to the Women’s. Gender, and Sexuality Studies curriculum. His research has appeared in Legacy, Women’s Studies, and ESQ. He has work forthcoming from the Harvard Library Bulletin about bluestocking genders in the archive and from Transgender Studies Quarterly considering settler uses of effeminate characters. He is working on a book that investigates how nineteenth century authors invent gender categories for use in their political rhetoric. This research has been supported by the Houghton Library of Harvard University and Stanford University’s Clayman Institute for Gender Research. He earned his PhD in Literatures in English with a certificate in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies from Rutgers University in 2024.