Megan Sinnott
Associate Professor Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies- Education
Ph.D. University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2002
- Specializations
Asian Studies, gender, and sexuality in Thailand, LGBTQ Studies, leftist history, nationalism and sexualities, and spirit and ghost narratives.
Courses Taught
Sexuality and Gender in Asia
Nationalism and Sexuality
Feminist Theories
Feminist Methodologies
Globalization and Gender
- Biography
Core faculty, Institute for Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
PhD University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2002Megan Sinnott’s main research interests have been the configurations of sexuality and gender in Thailand, specifically female same-sex relations and gendered identities. Topics on which she has written include Thai nationalism and the state’s policies and discourses on sexuality and gender, non-governmental organizations and activism, and the sexual and gendered identities of “tom” and “dee.” She has spent approximately nine years in Thailand studying and conducting research on these topics. Her new interest is ghost and spirit stories and how these narratives emerge and circulate within particular historical and political contexts. Before coming to Georgia State, she taught anthropology and women’s studies at Mahidol and Thammasat universities in Thailand, University of Colorado-Boulder and Yale University. She is currently working on a book project on the topic of affect, hauntings, and gender in Thailand.
- Publications
- 2014. “Baby Ghosts: Child Spirits and Contemporary Conceptions of Childhood in Thailand,” TRaNS: Trans-Regional and National Studies of Southeast Asia, 2(2): 293-317.
- 2014. “The Libidinal Power of Revolution: Sexuality in the Thai Leftist Movement of the 1970s-1980s,” Southeast Asia Research, 22 (1):5-22.
- 2013. “Dormitories and Other Queer Spaces: An Anthropology of Space, Gender and the Visibility of Female Homoeroticism in Thailand.” Feminist Studies,39(2): 333-356.
- 2012. “Korean-pop, Tom Gay Kings, Les Queens and the Capitalist Transformation of Sex/Gender Categories in Thailand.” Asian Studies Review [Special Issue: Queer Asian Subjects]. 36(4): 453-474.
- 2011. “The Language of Rights, Deviance and Pleasure: Organizational Responses to Discourses of Same-Sex Sexuality and Transgenderism in Thailand”. In Peter Jackson (ed.). Queer Bangkok. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, pp. 205-228.
- 2010. “Border, Diaspora and Regional Connections: Trends in Asian ‘Queer’ Studies,” Journal of Asian Studies. 69(1). February, 2010:17-31.
- 2009. “Public Sex: The Geography of Female Homoeroticism and the (In)Visibility of Female Sexualities.” In Ellen Lewin and William Leap (eds.). Out in Public: Reinventing Lesbian / Gay Anthropology in a Globalizing World. Wiley Blackwell.
- 2008. “The Romance of the Queer: The Sexual and Gender Norms of Tom and Dee in Thailand.” In Peter Jackson and Fran Martin (eds.). Asia/Pacific Queer. Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press.
- 2007. “Gender Subjectivity: Dees and Toms in Thailand.” In Abha Bhaiya, Evelyn Blackwood, and Saskia E. Wieringa (eds.). Women’s Sexualities and Masculinities in a Globalizing Asia. New York: Palgrave.
- Toms and Dees: Female Same Sex Sexuality and Transgender Identity in Thailand. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2004.
- Winner of 2005 Ruth Benedict Prize for best monograph, SOLGA, American Anthropological Association.