
Cedar Lensing-Sharp,
Visiting Lecturer in German
Pronouns: they/them/theirs
Office Location: Humanities 216
Academic History
- Ph.D. in Comparative Literature with Designated Emphasis in Women, Gender, & Sexuality Studies, UC Berkeley
- B.A. in Comparative Literature and German Studies, Smith College
Academic Focus
Lensing-Sharp鈥檚 research investigates comparative queer and trans literatures in German and French, focusing on scientific, literary, and autobiographical texts from the 19th and 20th centuries. Their work explores queer and trans modes of desiring and self-fashioning through aesthetic and literary expression. Lensing-Sharp aims to put feminist theory, queer theory, and trans studies in conversation when we read narratives of gender non-conformity, with particular interest in expanding ways of reading of queer and trans lives before 19th-century sexology.
Interests
Fields of interest include women鈥檚 writing/茅criture feminine, queer theory, reparative reading, lesbian literature, German and French literatures, reimagining literary canons, trans life writing and literature, sexology, queer and trans approaches to the Weimar era, translation theory and practice, and film.
Books
Lensing-Sharp鈥檚 book manuscript, tentatively titled Erotic Epistemologies: Knowledge Production in Lesbian Novels Against Sexology, investigates the production of knowledge about female homosexuality in German and French sexological case studies and lesbian novels at the turn of the 20th century. The book argues that both sexologists and lesbian authors mobilized a blend of narrative stylization and empirical argumentation to shape both expert and popular notions of lesbian sexuality and gender.
Selected Research and Publications
- Chapter: 鈥淓rotic Pedagogy, Power Play, and Suspended Pleasure in M盲dchen in Uniform (1931).鈥 In Weimar鈥檚 Queer Visual Cultures, edited by Birgit Lang, Ina Linge, and Katie Sutton. University of Toronto Press, 2026.
- 鈥溾榃arum ward ich kein Mann!鈥: Karoline von G眉nderrode as Proto-Transmasculine Poet.鈥 The Place of Trans* in German Studies, special issue of Colloquia Germanica, vol. 59, no. 1 (2026).
- Co-editor with Rafael Balling, The Place of Trans* in German Studies, special issue of Colloquia Germanica, vol. 59, no. 1 (2026).
- Translation of 鈥淪elf-Presentation, Kitsch, Irony: German Sound Film around 1930,鈥 by Selina Hangartner, 惭颈蝉别-别苍-厂肠猫苍别 3, no. 1 (2018): 26-38. Translated from the German.
Awards and Honors
Summer Institute on Evidence-Based Teaching, UCLA (July 2026)
Preparing Future Faculty: Designing Courses Through the Lens of Universal Design for Learning (UDL), UC Berkeley (Spring 2024)
Extraordinary Teaching in Extraordinary Times Award, UC Berkeley (2020-21)