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Assistant Professor of Gender, Sexuality and Women's Studies

1219 Hart Hall
Ava L.J. Kim is an assistant professor of Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies and affiliate faculty in the Cultural Studies PhD Program at the University of California, Davis. She previously held the 2023 Chancellor's Postdoctoral Fellowship in Trans Studies at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and completed her PhD in English at the University of Pennsylvania. Her work has appeared in GLQ, Studies in Gender and Sexuality, American Studies, and the edited collection, About Face: Stonewall, Revolt, and New Queer Art. With Christoph Hanssmann, she is co-founder of the Trans Freedom School, an initiative funded by a 3-year grant from the Mellon Foundation. In 2025, she received the Crompton-Noll Essay Prize for her essay, “The Future is Child’s Play: A Travesti, Intersex Theory of Anti-Development.” 
 
Dr. Kim is a scholar of queer and trans studies, postcolonial studies, 20th century literature, comparative race, Latin American studies, and Asian American studies. Her book-in-progress, Still / Life: Trans Genre and the Politics of Nationhood, analyzes two seemingly disparate uses of “transition": first, to describe a person’s shift from one gender to another, and second, to narrate a nation’s political change through key terms like “democratization” and “development.” Taking case studies from Argentina, Chile, the Philippines, and Vietnam, Still / Life argues that these invocations of transition form a unified history of ideological struggle from the 1970s to the present, masking state violence and promoting one “proper” path to prosperity for both individuals and nations. 
 
Education and Degree(s)
  • Ph.D. English, University of Pennsylvania
  • M.A. English, University of Pennsylvania
  • B.A. English, Macalester College
Honors and Awards
  • “The Trans Freedom School,” Mellon Foundation, 2025-2028
  • Career Enhancement Fellowship, Institute for Citizens and Scholars, 2026-2027
  • Crompton-Noll Award for best essay in LGBTQ+ Studies, Modern Language Association and American Studies Association, 2025
  • Hellman Fellowship, University of California, 2025-2026
  • UCHRI Manuscript and Research Development Grant, 2025-2026
  • Faculty Research Fellowship, UC Davis Humanities Institute, 2024-2025
  • Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship (Macalester College)
Research Interests & Expertise
  • Queer and Trans Studies; Race and Empire; Literature and Genre; Latin American Studies; Asian American Studies; Visual Culture; Comparative Critique
Publications