Susan Stryker is a foundational figure in trans studies. When Monsters Speak showcases the development of Stryker’s writing from the 1990s to the present. It combines canonical pieces, such as “My Words to Victor Frankenstein,” with her hard to find earlier work published in zines and newsletters. Brought together, they ground Stryker’s thought in 1990s San Francisco and its innovative queer, trans, and S/M cultures. The volume includes an introduction by editor McKenzie Wark, who highlights Stryker’s connections to developments in queer theory, media studies, and autotheory while foregrounding Stryker’s innovative writing style and scholarly methods. When Monsters Speak is an authoritative and essential collection by one of the most important and influential intellectuals of our time.

Susan Stryker is Professor Emerita of Gender and Women’s Studies at the University of Arizona. She is the author of Transgender History and coeditor of The Transgender Studies Reader.

McKenzie Wark is Professor of Culture and Media at The New School and the author of several books, including Raving and Philosophy for Spiders: On the Low Theory of Kathy Acker, both also published by Duke University Press.

-- Torrey Peters, author of Detransition, Baby

Introduction / McKenzie Wark
Part I. Trans Sanfrisco
1. Trick Dive
2. The Surgeon Haunts My Dreams
3. Renaissance and Apocalypse: Notes on the Bay Area’s Transsexual Arts Scene
4. Across the Border: On the Anarchorporeality Project A Discussion between Kathy High and Susan Stryker
5. Los Angeles at Night
6. Dungeon Intimacies: The Poetics of Transsexual Sadomasochism
7. Perfect Day
8. Ketamine Journal
9. See Beams Glitter
Part II. Trans Theory as Gender Theory
10. The Time Has Come to Think about Gayle Rubin
11. Transgender Feminism: Queering the Woman in Question
12. Transgender History, Homonormativity, and Disciplinarity
13. Lesbian Generations: Transsexual . . . Lesbian . . . Feminis
Part III. When Monsters Speak
14. My Words to Victor Frankenstein above the Village of Chamounix: Performing Transgender Rage
15. Transgender Studies: Queer Theory’s Evil Twin
16. Transing the Queer (In)human
17. More Words about “My Words to Victor Frankenstein”
Conclusion. Interview, McKenzie Wark and Susan Stryker
Bibliography
Index