Reading and Teaching Collections

Our reading and teaching collections are meant to give researchers and instructors a starting place to investigate critical asexual or aromantic studies. Whether you are teaching a historical era with a queer focus, or you are interested in learning more about a certain intersectional topic within aro/ace studies, these guides are meant to help you begin your study of this theoretical field, before (or alongside) research within the bibliography. If you work in the field, and wish to add a reading or teaching collection of your own, please Contact Us.

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Introduction to Asexuality Theory

By Jenna McKellips

This reading list is meant to be an introduction to asexuality studies and theories overall; it therefore includes a variety of foundational texts which discuss key terms and ideas to using asexuality as a critical lens. Learn more by reading our full-length explanation.

Read our Post explaining how we came up with this list!

Introduction to Aro Theory

By Jenna McKellips

Reading Aromantically

By Jenna McKellips

These readings focus largely on aromantic reading in terms of looking for aro representation; however, they also highlight the way that aro readings might also work as theoretical investigations of amatonormativity, the ways characters break from the social forces that punish singleness, and the ways that characters and societies can relate non-romantically. Learn more by reading our full-length explanation.

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Early Modern Asexuality (and Aromanticism)

By Liza Blake

What does it mean to read for, or look for, asexuality and/or aromanticism in early modernity (~1500-1700), centuries before the terms for those identities would be coined? This list compiles some essential reading on aro/ace readings in early modernity. Learn more by reading our article-length explanation.

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Asexuality and Autism

By K. Zimmer

Discourse surrounding autism and asexuality has historically perpetuated ableism and aphobia through medically and socially imposed presumptions of mutual inclusivity. The recommended readings in this post historicize these forms of discursive harm to generate intersectional and mutually affirmative frameworks for discussing and theorizing the relationship between autism and asexuality. Learn more by reading this article-length explanation.

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Asexuality and Disability

These are the editors’ picks for this topic, but we are actively looking for someone to write their own post, alongside their own list, on this topic. Express interest in making a reading list and post by Contacting Us.

Trans & Asexual ‘Puberty’

By Theo Northcraft

This reading list is meant to help readers begin thinking about (a)sexualities while keeping the complexity of trans puberties in mind; Northcraft challenges us to create a narrative of (a)sexuality using the lens of “puberty” to think both about hormones and about ideas of development, growth, or change. Learn more by reading this article-length explanation.

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Medieval Asexual Resonances

By Jenna McKellips

This list is intended to supplement queer readings of medieval texts, or medieval coursework with a queer focus. Each of the sources listed below offers different approaches to how scholars might use the insights of asexuality studies to find queer asexual resonances in medieval texts and archives. Learn more by reading our article-length explanation.

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Asexuality and Race

By Ananth Shastri

This list features authors of color discussing asexuality and race in mutual terms. Nonwhite populations have not only been racialized, but also hypersexualized and desexualized by centuries of white colonial rule. For several authors, navigating asexuality as a person of color requires—and generates—new strategies for reading history, socializing with others, and inhabiting one’s body. Learn more by reading Shastri’s article-length explanation.

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Introducing the Carnival of Aces

By Philomena Lancione

  • This list, and its accompanied post by Philomena Lancione, is forthcoming. Please stay tuned!

The Asexuality and Aromanticism Bibliography was created with generous funds from a University of Toronto Critical Digital Humanities Initiative Graduate Partner Grant, and was initially launched September 2022.