Ezekiel “Zeke” Tjia

Professional Bio

Ezekiel "Zeke" Tjia [IPA: tʃɪə] is a graduate student & the recipient of the 2019-2020 Edwin Erle Sparks Graduate Fellowship at the Pennsylvania State University’s Department of English. Trained as an Americanist, their research asks questions about the subject & subjectivity as it appears in contemporary culture. Their research archives include documentary cinema, 20th- & 21st- century visual art, postwar American literature (poetry + the novel), & performance. The theoretical & methodological frames (of reference) that inform their work are Deconstruction, Psychoanalysis, Marxism, & Feminist/Queer theory. They embarrassingly joke about being a Derrideleuzien(ne).

Along- & beside their more conventional scholarship, Zeke is also a poet, & has had their work published in (among other publications) the Minetta Review, the Gallatin Review, & Protean. Their chapbook, in capital letters, is available to download for free here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/11be1yr7TFw7IrTPmHOkur-GxUFK5WyCR/view?usp=sharing

They are currently at work on an article on HIV/AIDS & vulnerability, a conference paper on photography for the American Studies Association annual meeting (2021), & two passion projects: the first, The Femboy Manifesto; the second, a chapbook, All My Friends Are Either Dead Or Alive & I Can't Tell You Which Is Worse. Their next project on the horizon examines J. D. Salinger's Franny and Zooey as one of, if not the, smartest, wittiest, funniest, & aesthetically challenging (absurdist) critiques of the postwar American nouveau riche & petit (& petty) bourgeoisie.