Assistant Professor

E: erique_zhang@sfu.ca
P: 778.782.4468
Room: K9652

Erique Zhang (they/she) is Assistant Professor of Digital Publics and Promotional Cultures in the School of Communication at Simon Fraser University. Their research examines how images of trans women and femmes of color circulate in the fashion, beauty, and entertainment industries and what these images communicate about race, gender, and trans identity. Their first monograph, in progress, proposes a trans femme of color critique of media that understands trans womanhood as imbricated with social processes of racialization and colonization.

Erique's writing has been appeared in numerous scholarly publications, including Feminist Media Studies, Communication, Culture and Critique, JCMS: Journal of Cinema and Media Studies, TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly, and The Oxford Handbook of Media and Social Justice (Oxford University Press, 2024). They co-edited a special issue of Critical Studies in Fashion and Beauty with Dr. Roberto Filippello on Transgender Embodiment in Fashion and Beauty. They are currently co-editing the anthology Paradise on the Margins: Worldmaking by Trans Women of Color alongside Lexi Adsit, Nava Mau, LaVelle Ridley, and Raquel Willis.

In 2021, Erique co-founded the Center for Applied Transgender Studies (CATS) with Drs. TJ Billard and Avery Everhart. CATS aims to facilitate and promote the empirical study of transgender issues with the ultimate aim of informing policy-making and public discourse in ways that improve quality of life for the trans community. Erique served as an assistant editor for the Bulletin of Applied Transgender Studies, the flagship journal of CATS. In 2024, CATS hosted the Second International Trans Studies Conference. Erique is also an affiliate of the Center for Critical Race and Digital Studies.

For more information about Erique's work, see their website at https://www.eriquezhang.com/

EDUCATION

• 2024 PhD Northwestern University (Media, Technology and Society)
• 2015 MA New York University (Visual Culture: Costume Studies)
• 2010 BFA New York University (Studio Art)

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS

Zhang, Erique, Julian Kevon Glover, Ava L. J. Kim, Tamsin Kimoto, Nathan Alexander Moore, æryka jourdaine hollis o'neil, and LaVelle Ridley. 2023. "A Tranifesto for the Dolls: Toward a Trans Femme of Color Theory." TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly 10 (3-4): 328-49. https://doi.org/10.1215/23289252-10900872

Zhang, Erique. 2023. "'I don’t just want to look female; I want to be beautiful': theorizing passing as labor in the transition vlogs of Gigi Gorgeous and Natalie Wynn." Feminist Media Studies 23 (4): 1376-91. https://doi.org/10.1080/14680777.2022.2041687

Zhang, Erique. 2023. "'She is as feminine as my mother, as my sister, as my biologically female friends': On the promise and limits of transgender visibility in fashion media." Communication, Culture and Critique 16 (1): 25-32. https://doi.org/10.1093/ccc/tcac043

Billard, TJ, Avery Everhart, and Erique Zhang. 2022. "Whither Trans Studies?: On Fields, Post-Disciplines, and the Need for an Applied Transgender Studies." Bulletin of Applied Transgender Studies 1 (1-2): 1-18. https://doi.org/10.57814/pe84-4348

Billard, TJ, and Erique Zhang. 2022. "Toward a Transgender Critique of Media Representation." JCMS: Journal of Cinema and Media Studies 61 (2): 194-99. https://doi.org/10.1353/cj.2022.0005