Perry Zurn

Perry Zurn (he/him) is Visiting Associate Professor of Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Cornell University and Provost Associate Professor of Philosophy at American University. He researches primarily in political philosophy, critical theory, and trans studies, and collaborates in psychology and network neuroscience. Zurn is the author of Curiosity and Power: The Politics of Inquiry (2021) and How We Make Each Other: Trans Life at the Edge of the University (2025), as well as the co-author of Curious Minds: The Power of Connection (2022). He is also the co-editor of Active Intolerance: Michel Foucault, the Prisons Information Group, and the Future of Abolition (2016), Curiosity Studies: A New Ecology of Knowledge (2020), Intolerable: Writings from Michel Foucault and the Prisons Information Group, 1970-1980 (2021), and Trans Philosophy (2024). Zurn’s previous appointments include Fellow at Cornell University's Society for the Humanities, SSNAP Fellow at Duke University, Research Associate at the Five College Women’s Studies Research Center, and Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Curiosity in the School of Social Policy and Practice.