LGBTQ+ Leaders Stories - Charlotte Ross
Meet Charlotte, Professor of Italian and Gender Studies in the Department of Medieval and Modern Languages, and Co-Director of Queer Kinship
Charlotte’s (she/her) work explores the cultural representation of gender, sexuality and embodiment from a queer perspective: this means analysing how these aspects of our identities are constructed, narrated and negotiated in the cultural texts that surround us. Currently, she is Co-Director of an interdisciplinary project on Queer Kinship. Charlotte shares with us her academic and career journey and the challenges she sees associated with increased visibility for LGBTQ+ communities in today's academic environment.
Read Charlotte's full story:
Charlotte’s career journey
"Before joining the Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages at Oxford in September 2024, I completed a PhD in Italian Studies at the University of Warwick, and held an academic post in Modern Languages at the University of Birmingham. New colleagues at Oxford have been very supportive and welcoming, and there is a lively international intellectual community. There is a lot of interest in queer texts and theories, both from colleagues and from students, which makes this a really stimulating environment.
"My research is very closely linked to my lived experience as an out queer woman. I’ve been out in the workplace for over 20 years, and have been a mentor to LGBTQ+ colleagues and students. I am also co-director of Queer Kinship, an interdisciplinary project that seeks to develop a deeper awareness of diverse configurations of queer bonds and families within a plural, multicultural, and inclusive framework.
"Over the years, I’ve watched the UK (and Italian) university contexts shift considerably, in relation to Gender, LGBT and Queer Studies. I completed my undergraduate degree, and most of my PhD, under the shadow of Section 28 of the Local Government Act 1988; a law that prohibited the positive framing of homosexuality in schools and the ‘promotion of homosexuality’. It was only repealed in 2003. I also research a context that has traditionally been—and sadly remains—deeply homophobic and extremely normative. These negative influences undoubtedly impacted on my coming out, and also limited the kind of research that had been done on Italian literature before the early 2000s.
As an early career researcher, I was told by several senior academics that queer theories were not relevant to my field of study, and that Gender and Queer Studies were not ‘proper’ academic fields. However I became part of an emerging community of researchers interested in the queer dimensions of Italian culture and since then I have worked, both on individual projects and collaboratively, to establish queer Italian Studies as a vibrant field of study.
Opportunities and challenges
"As a researcher, my aim is to build bridges and foster dialogue, to open up new avenues of research, and to validate a queer theoretical perspective as a productive lens through which to re-evaluate cultural discourses and heritage. I really enjoy bringing people together to think collectively; it is challenging, growthful and often empowering. As a teacher, I seek to support my students and to help them to look both at and beyond the canon, and to question cisheteronormative interpretations. I encourage them to develop the skills to analyse the many ways in which various problematic kinds of normativity are enforced, and the confidence to express their views.
"The current moment is one of relative visibility for LGBTQ+ communities and research in the UK, but unfortunately there is a pernicious backlash in progress. The rights that have been fought for over the past several decades are still partial and precarious, and there are threats to many people’s safety and wellbeing. We can look to international high-profile queer scholars like Judith Butler, Paul B. Preciado, Jack Halberstam and Sara Ahmed for inspiration about how to understand the current situation and how to respond. We can also look to each other; if we respect one another, and allow people to express their identities and their perspectives as they choose, on their own terms, we create a more inclusive environment that is also dynamic and creative. In addition we learn so much about others and ourselves. In my research, I often analyse texts which have (to my mind) a clear, queer dimension, which has been ‘read out’ by others, perhaps due to prejudice, fear of reprisals, or just to normative outlooks. If we allow space for what might seem unexpected, if we allow the queer aspects of texts, contexts and the people around us to take up space, then we all thrive."
