Asher Firestone
Ph.D. Student
Ethnic Studies

Office Location: Ketchum 355

Pronouns: they / he

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EducationÌý Ìý Ìý Ìý Ìý Ìý Ìý Ìý Ìý Ìý Ìý Ìý Ìý

MPP., University of Virginia - Public Policy, 2017
BA., University of Virginia - Foreign Affairs, 2016Ìý Ìý Ìý Ìý Ìý Ìý Ìý Ìý Ìý Ìý ÌýÌý

Research Interests

Decolonial methodologies, critical military studies, queer masculinities, anti-Zionist Jewish diasporas, deviant studies, trans of color abolitionist theories, anti-imperial social movementsÌý


Working with other queer Jewish anti-Zionists in Israel/Palestine convinced me that anti-imperial solidarity scholarship is needed to undo the homonationalist call for trans-inclusive militarism more broadly. The dire state of anti-trans attacks in the U.S. and attacks on Palestinians are often positioned as separate, when they in fact feed off one another.ÌýLiberal agendas in the U.S. today seek trans inclusion in the military in a panicked response to rampant transphobia, precluding a critical questioning of the morality of their enlistment. In my research, I will interrogate how the deviance of transness further problematizes this political demand. I am also interested in exploring the need for a political vocabulary that envisions diasporic Jewish futures outside of the context of an apartheid state.

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