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.

• KJ Cerankowski and Megan Milk’s New Orientations: Asexuality and Its Implications for Theory and Practice“
• Ianna Hawkins Owen’s “On the Racialization of Asexuality”
• Kim TallBear and Angela Willey’s “Critical Relationality: Queer, Indigenous, and Multispecies Belonging Beyond Settler Sex and Nature”
• Eunjung Kim’s “Asexuality in disability narratives”
• Coyote’s “Top 6 Mistakes in the Academic Field of Asexuality Studies”

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• yingchen and yingtong’s “an aromantic manifesto”
• C Bougie’s “Composing Aromanticism“
• Sherronda J. Brown’s “Black folks don’t need a nuclear family to be legitimate“
• Caleb Luna’s “Romantic Love is Killing Us: Who Takes Care of Us When We’re Single?“
• Elizabeth Brake’s Minimizing Marriage
• Evelyn Elgie’s “Being and Doing: Interrogating Dominant Narratives of Asexual Kinship in an Amatonormative Culture“

The Post explaining this list is coming soon–stay tuned!

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.

• Matthew Williams’s “Cold Heart: An Exploration of Aromanticism in Lucy“
• Madeline Andrews’s “Queering Austen: Mary Bennet, Aromanticism and Asexuality in Pride and Prejudice“
• misslivvie’s “Theory: Charlotte Lucas is Aromantic“
• aroacestories’s “An Aro/Ace analysis of Jane Austen’s Emma“
• Colin Görke’s “‘Melted Your Cold Heart Yet?’ Amatonormative Masculinity in Casino Royale and Spectre“
• S.L. Dove Cooper’s “We’re on Our Side: Aziraphale and Crowley’s Thoroughly Queer Relationship in Good Omens“

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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.

• Simone Chess’s “Asexuality, Queer Chastity, and Adolescence in Early Modern Literature”
• Melissa E. Sanchez’s “Protestantism, marriage and asexuality in Shakespeare,”
• Roundtable: “Early Modern Asexuality and Performance” (Liza Blake, Nicholas Brush, Simone Chess, Rho Chung, Catherine Clifford, and Aley O’Mara)
• Theodora A. Jankowski’s Pure Resistance: Queer Virginity in Early Modern English Drama
• Christine Varnado’s The Shapes of Fancy: Reading for Queer Desire in Early Modern Literature (Introduction)

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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.

• Linn J Sandberg, Hanna Bertilsdotter Rosqvist, and Alisa Grigorovich’s  “Regulating, fostering and preserving: the production of sexual normates through cognitive ableism and cognitive othering“
• Eunjung Kim’s “Asexualities and Disabilities in Constructing Sexual Normalcy”
• Emily Lund and Bayley Johnson’s “Asexuality and Disability: Strange but Compatible Bedfellows”
• Melanie Yergeau’s Authoring Autism

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• Cynthia Barounis’s “Compulsory Sexuality and Asexual/Crip Resistance in John Cameron Mitchell’s Shortbus“
• Kristina Gupta’s “Aseuality and Disability: Mutual Negation in Adams v. Rice and New Directions for Coalition Building“
• Karen Cuthbert’s “You Have to be Normal to be Abnormal: An Empirically Grounded Exploration of the Intersection of Asexuality and Disability“
• Eunjung Kim’s “Asexuality in disability narratives“
• Alaina Leary’s “Asexual Disabled People Exist, But Don’t Make Assumptions About Us“

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.

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.

• Martha McClintock and Gilbert Herdt’s “Rethinking Puberty”
• Cameron Awkward-Rich’s “Trans Study (1), and: Sterile” 
• Ela Przybylo’s “Asexuals against the Cis-tem!”
• Megan Milks’ “Stunted Growth”
• Queenie’s “Navigating adolescence as an asexual”

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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.

• Megan Arkenberg’s “‘A Mayde, and Last of Youre Blood’: Galahad’s Asexuality and its Significance in ‘Le Morte D’Arthur’.”
• Gwendolyn Osterwald’s “Contradictions in the Representation of Asexuality: Fiction and Reality.”
• Sarah Salih’s Versions of Virginity in Late Medieval England.
• Theodora Jankowski’s “Pure Resistance: Queer(y)ing Virginity in William Shakespeare’s ‘Measure for Measure’ and Margaret Cavendish’s ‘The Convent of Pleasure’”
• Melissa Sanchez’s “Protestantism, Marriage, and Asexuality in Shakespeare”

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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.

• Michael Paramo’s “Examining the Whiteness of the Ace Community”
• Sherronda J. Brown’s “Black Folks Don’t Need a Nuclear Family to Be Legitimate”
• Daniel Yo-Ling’s “Racial Castration and Demiboy Joy”
• Aasha B. Foster et al.’s “Personal Agency Disavowed: Identity Construction in Asexual Women of Color”
• Ianna Hawkins Owen’s “Still, Nothing: Mammy and Black Asexual Possibility”

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