Dr. Jason Farr黑料论坛黑料论坛 Hall, 214
MilwaukeeWI53201United States of America(414) 288-5630jason.farr@marquette.eduI work across sub-fields, combining the study of disability with gender and sexuality studies, deaf studies, sound studies, and medical history. My training is in the British long eighteenth century but my research takes me in more contemporary directions as well. My first book, Novel Bodies: Disability and Sexuality in Eighteenth-Century British Literature (Bucknell University Press鈥揟ransits Series, 2019), examines how fictional representations of physical disability, deafness, and chronic illness inform the emergence of modern regimes of gender and sexuality. Novel Bodies argues that early novelists represent queer and disabled characters in their fiction to reconfigure the political and social landscapes of eighteenth-century Britain.
Currently, I am working on three book projects. The first of these, The Deaf Resonances of Eighteenth-Century Fiction, argues that novel history is deeply conversant with deaf history. What we now identify as novels emerged as popular print forms over roughly the same period that deaf education began to appear in Western Europe. This temporal overlap is not merely coincidental: deaf ways of being resonate across early print literary culture in significant ways. Deaf domains such as sign language, gestural communication, mishearing, and multisensory perception routinely animate the characters and plots of eighteenth-century novels. I am also co-editing an anthology entitled Archive, Theory, and Access: New Directions in Disability Studies, which has developed out of a series of University of California grant supported gatherings I have co-directed with Helen Deutsch, Paul Kelleher, Jared Richman, and Lesley Thulin鈥搃ncluding a two-day conference at The Clark Library in 2022, a symposium at The Huntington Library in November 2025, and a future conference in 2026. The purpose of these events, and the anthology of essays that will come out of them, has been to spark new conversations about disability methodologies and to contemplate how we balance the presentism of theoretical inquiry with archival research and accessibility.
The final project is a creative biography that narrates the life of my deceased uncle, Joe LeSueur, a queer author who was the lover, friend, and roommate of the celebrated New York School poet, Frank O鈥橦ara. This project details my efforts to learn about LeSueur, whom I only met briefly as a child, from the various forms of writing he published鈥搃ncluding a pulp novel, a book of concrete poetry, theater reviews, soap operas, and a memoir. An excerpt from this project appears in .
I enjoy teaching a range of classes in eighteenth-century literature, disability and LGBTQ+ studies, gothic fiction, the health humanities, and our department鈥檚 introduction to literary studies course. My classes routinely challenge students to think transhistorically about disability, sexuality, gender, and race in the literature and theory we read together. I prioritize accessibility in my classrooms, and I also seek to build communities of care that foster intellectual and personal growth. Due in part to my deafness, I have learned firsthand about the importance of accessibility. I have been involved in various collaborative efforts to enhance accessibility for staff, faculty, and students with disabilities, including in my appointments as a member of 黑料论坛鈥檚 ADVANCE team and MLA鈥檚 Committee for Disability Issues. I have written in public forums about accessibility at conferences and in classrooms with the goal of establishing more inclusive communities.
Grad Seminars:
Undergraduate courses:
Office Hours
Fall 2025
Teaching Schedule
Fall 2025
