Alyson K. Spurgas received a doctorate in Sociology and a doctoral certificate in Women's & Gender Studies from The Graduate Center at the City University of New York (CUNY) in 2014. Spurgas's first book, Diagnosing Desire: Biopolitics and Femininity into the Twenty-First Century (Ohio State University Press, 2020), interrogates the medical regulation and technoscientific production of "receptive" or "responsive" sexual desire in women. Through in-depth qualitative research and incisive textual analysis, Spurgas complicates reductive explanations for gender differences in sexual desire and arousal patterns, highlighting instead the embodied, psychic, and material effects of gendered trauma, sexual carework, and white feminine socialization. Diagnosing Desire was awarded the inaugural First Book Prize from the Cultural Studies Association in 2021. The free open access e-book can be downloaded here.

Spurgas's newest book, Decolonize Self-Care, will be released on OR Books in November 2022. This public-facing text was co-authored with critical public health scholar Zoë C. Meleo-Erwin for Bhakti Shringarpure's "Decolonize That!" series.

Recipient of the Mellon Fellowship in Interdisciplinary Science Studies at the CUNY Graduate Center (2011-2012), and winner of the Alexandra Symonds Prize (2013) for an essay on recent changes in female sexual dysfunction diagnoses, Spurgas has been recognized internationally for their innovative, interdisciplinary, and intersectional work on gender, sexuality, desire, and trauma.

In the classroom, Spurgas’ teaching style is fundamentally collaborative, creating a space wherein both student and teacher work together to think more deeply and more critically.

curriculum vitae

• Spurgas, Alyson K. 2022. “The Feminization of ‘Responsive’ Desire.” Pp. 401-409 in Introducing the New Sexuality Studies, Fourth Edition, edited by Nancy Fischer and Laurel Westbrook with Steven Seidman. New York & London: Routledge.
• Spurgas, Alyson K. 2021. “Solidarity in Falling Apart: Toward a Crip, Collectivist, and Justice-Seeking Theory of Feminine Fracture.” Lateral 10.1.
• Spurgas, Alyson K. 2016. “Low Desire, Trauma, and Femininity in the DSM-5: A Case for Sequelae.” Psychology & Sexuality 7: 48-67.
• Spurgas, Alyson K. 2013. “Interest, Arousal, and Shifting Diagnoses of Female Sexual Dysfunction, or: How Women Learn about Desire.” Studies in Gender and Sexuality 14: 187-205.
• Spurgas, Alyson K. 2012. “Where is My Subjectivity? Techno-Imagery, Femininity and Desire.” Social Text: Periscope.
• Spurgas, Alyson K. 2009. “(Un)Queering Identity: The Biosocial Production of Intersex/DSD.” Pp. 97-122 in Critical Intersex, edited by M. Holmes. London: Ashgate Press.

• Spurgas, Alyson K. 2016. “Solving Desire.” The New Inquiry.

• First Book Prize , Cultural Studies Association: Diagnosing Desire: Biopolitics and Femininity into the Twenty-First Century. Awarded to an outstanding scholarly work which advances and extends the reach of cultural studies as a field, as a method of inquiry, and as an intellectual/political project, 2021.
• Alexandra Symonds Prize , Studies in Gender and Sexuality Annual International Competition: “Interest, Arousal, and Shifting Diagnoses of Female Sexual Dysfunction, or: How Women Learn about Desire.” Awarded for best essay on a topic related to issues of gender, sexuality, or both, this paper was also published as the lead essay in Volume 14, Issue 3 of Studies in Gender and Sexuality, 2013.
• Rose Laub Coser Dissertation Proposal Award , Eastern Sociological Society: “Circuits of Desire: Neuroimaging, Evolutionary Femininity, and Therapeutic Learning.” Awarded for best dissertation proposal in the area of sex/gender studies, 2012.
• Mellon Fellowship , Committee for Interdisciplinary Science Studies, The Graduate Center, City University of New York, 2011-2012.