Bio
Natalie Kouri-Towe/NKT is an Associate Professor of feminism and sexuality at the Simone de Beauvoir Institute at Concordia University. Her research has been published in both academic and non-academic venues on topics related to affect theory, solidarity, kinship, queer activism, trigger warnings, gender and sexuality pedagogies, masculinity, and responses to war in the Middle East.
Her edited collection, Reading the Room: Lessons on Pedagogy and Curriculum from the Gender and Sexuality Studies Classroom, is forthcoming (Fall 2024) with Concordia University Press. Along with Myloe Martel-Perry, she has also published an open access teaching guidebook, Better Practice in the Classroom: A Teaching Guidebook for Sustainable, Inclusive, and Equitable Learning from a Gender and Sexuality Studies Framework, available through Concordia Pressbooks. She is currently working on a book manuscript on feminist and queer solidarity under neoliberalism titled Solidarity at Risk.
Education
PhD Sociology of Education, Department of Social Justice Education, OISE and the Collaborative Program in Women's and Gender Studies, WGSI, University of Toronto
MA Communication Studies, McGill University
BA Women's Studies Honours and Humanistic Studies, McGill University
Research Interests
gender
race
sexuality
solidarity
social movements
transnational feminism
masculinities
securitization
war
gender-based violence
refugees and migration
affect studies
digital media
gender and sexuality pedagogy and curriculum
Affiliations
The Social Justice Centre
Awards and Grants
Grants
SSHRC Insight Grant 2024 Competition (PI)
Project Title: Transformative Encounters: Gender and Sexuality Pedagogies in Canada
Team: Susanne Luhmann (co-investigator), Michelle Miller (co-investigator), S. Trimble (co-investigator), Ardath Whynacht (co-investigator), and 25 collaborators.
FRQSC Research Support for New Academics 2021 Competition (PI)
FRQSC Soutien à la recherche pour la relève professorale
Project Title: Éducation « difficile » : avertissements de contenu dans les études supérieures au Québec et au Canada
SSHRC Connection Grant 2021 Competition (PI)
Project Title: Teaching in the 21st Century: Pedagogy and Curriculum from the Gender and Sexuality Studies Classroom
Ranked: 1st sextile
SSHRC Insight Grant 2020 Competition (Co-investigator)
Project Title:
Triggering Education: Relational Readings of Trigger Warnings in the Canadian Post-Secondary Classroom
Team: Michelle Miller (PI), Hannah Dyer (co-applicant), Natalie Kouri-Towe (co-applicant), Julia Sinclair-Palm (collaborator)
SSHRC Connection Grant 2020 Competition (Co-applicant)
Project Title: Departures, Encounters, and Arrivals: Feminist Approaches to Migration and Mobility Justice Studies
Team: Gada Mahrouse (PI), Natalie Kouri-Towe (co-applicant)
SSHRC Insight Development Grant 2019 Competition (PI)
Project Title: Family and Kinship in the Refugee-Sponsor Relationship in Canada
Awards
Dean’s Award for Excellence in Academic Service 2020
Faculty of Arts and Science, Concordia University
Award for Academic Leadership in Sexuality Studies 2019
Sexuality Studies Association (SSA)
Current Courses
SSDB 275: Introduction to Sexuality Research (Winter 2020, 2021, 2022)
SSDB 425: Ethics in Community Engagement (Fall 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023)
SSDB 492: Seminar in Advanced Topics in Sexuality I - Transnational Sexuality Studies (Winter 2020; Fall 2023)
SSDB 220: Introduction to Theories of Sexuality (Not currently teaching)
WSDB 384: Queer Feminism (Not currently teaching)
Book Projects
Solidarity at Risk (in progress) examines the friction of feminist and queer solidarity under neoliberalism and the attending risks placed on contemporary practices of transnational solidarity through the convergence of global capitalism, human rights discourses, and shifting ideologies of selfhood. I contend that we must reconsider how solidarity in the21st century is formulated in order to effectively understand the relationship between contemporary projects for social transformation and new practices of governance in an era shaped by globalization. The book traces the history of solidarity and its debates in transnational feminist theory and politics to consider how ruptures in social movements emerge temporally and ideologically across the late 20th and early 21st century. Turning to debates in feminist activism and social movements, such as the #MeToo movement, the book interrogates how sexuality and subjectivity have emerged as markers of feminist and queer activism and proposes a way forward beyond fragmentation for social movements organizing today.
Reading the Room: Lessons on Pedagogy and Curriculum from the Gender and Sexuality Studies Classroom (forthcoming in Fall 2024 with Concordia University Press) is an edited book featuring leading gender and sexuality scholars from across Canada. The book invites readers across disciplines into the conversations happening within our field's classrooms on topics ranging from foundational learning, to applied learning, tackling racism within our courses, and tackling requests for trigger warnings.
Graduate Supervision
Please note I am not taking on graduate students for the 2024-25 academic year.
Supervision: I am taking on a limited number of graduate students under my supervision working in areas closely related to one of my current research projects.
Graduate Supervisory Committee: I am taking on a limited number of supervisory committee positions as second or third committee member for the coming academic year.
Areas of focus:
- gender and sexuality pedagogies;
- gender and sexuality in responses to war in the Middle East;
- queer social movements and activism;
- sexuality and kinship.
For inquiries, please email me:
- a description of your research project and how your project fits within one of the areas of research focus outlined above;
- a short explanation of what kind of role you'd like me to take on your committee;
- the name and contact information of your primary supervisor;
- a timeline of your graduate program.
Refereed Books
Natalie Kouri-Towe (ed). (forthcoming 2024). Reading the Room: Lessons on Pedagogy and Curriculum from the Gender and Sexuality Studies Classroom. Montreal: Concordia University Press.
Refereed Publications
Edited Collections
Mahrouse, Gada and Natalie Kouri-Towe (eds). 2023. “Departures, Encounters, and Arrivals: Feminist Geopolitical Approaches to Studying Human Mobilities and Borders.” Special issue, ACME: An International Journal for Critical Geographies. 22(4).
Carastathis, Anna, Natalie Kouri-Towe, Gada Mahrouse, and Leila Whitley (eds). 2018. Feminist Interventions in ‘Crisis’: Intersectionality, Refugees, and Migration. Refuge: Canada’s Journal on Refugees. 34(1).
Book Chapters
Kouri-Towe, Natalie. 2022. “Affective Pedagogies, and Pedagogies of Affect: Gender, Solidarity, and the Classroom in the Trigger Warning Debates.” The Routledge Companion to Gender and Affect. Ed. Todd Reeser. London: Routledge.
Kouri-Towe, Natalie. 2016. “Queer.” Keywords for Radicals: The Contested Vocabulary of Late-Capitalist Struggle. Eds. Kelly Fritsch, Clare O’Connor, and AK Thompson. AK Press: 335-341.
Book Reviews
Kouri-Towe, Natalie. 2016. Ethical Imperatives in Transnational Solidarity. TOPIA: Canadian Journal of Cultural Studies. 35: 213-216.
Roundtables
Public Writing
Kouri-Towe, Natalie. 2016. Queer. Keywords for Radicals: The Contested Vocabulary of Late-Capitalist Struggle. Eds.Kelly Fritsch, Clare O’Connor, and AK Thompson. AK Press: 335-341.
Kouri-Towe, Natalie. 2013. Queer Apocalypse: Survivalism and Queer Life at the End. FUSE Magazine. 36.3 (June): 4-5.
Kouri-Towe, Natalie. 2012. Trending Homonationalism.
No More Potlucks. 19 (January-February).
http://nomorepotlucks.org/site/trending-homonationalism.
Teaching Guides and Resources
Kouri-Towe, Natalie and Myloe Martel-Perry. 2021. Better Practices in the Sexuality Classroom: Teaching Resources and Guides for Sustainable and Equitable Learning.
https://nataliekouritowe.ca/teaching-guide/
Performance, Women’s Studies Professor Tour Guide
Killjoy’s Kastle: A Lesbian Feminist Haunted House
Artists: Allyson Mitchell and Deirdre Logue
IceBox Project Space, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, October 16-27, 2019
Performance & Talk, Queer Apocalypse
With Artist: Atom Cianfrani
Videofag, Toronto, Ontario, January 17, 2013
