Aurora Jonathan Goga
Pronouns: they/them
PGR in English Literature
BA, MA
Academic and research departments
Literature and Languages, SGS: Sex, Gender and Sexualities Research Centre.About
My research project
Early Modern Genderqueer Spirits: Gender-Nonconforming Embodiment in Seventeenth Century British Demonology and PoetryWhat sex is the Devil? According to early modern demonologists and poets, spirits had no sex of their own or could fluidly transition between sexes and perform a multitude of gender roles. My PhD analyses how the demonologists James VI/I and George Sinclair depicted genderqueer spirits as custodians of knowledge who could transfer their genderqueerness onto the humans who interacted with them, and how poets John Milton and Lucy Hutchinson use masculine wombs and violent gender-assignment to question the sexed and gendered basis of creation and parenthood.
Supervisors
What sex is the Devil? According to early modern demonologists and poets, spirits had no sex of their own or could fluidly transition between sexes and perform a multitude of gender roles. My PhD analyses how the demonologists James VI/I and George Sinclair depicted genderqueer spirits as custodians of knowledge who could transfer their genderqueerness onto the humans who interacted with them, and how poets John Milton and Lucy Hutchinson use masculine wombs and violent gender-assignment to question the sexed and gendered basis of creation and parenthood.
ResearchResearch interests
- Early modern trans studies
- Genderqueer embodiment
- Demonology
- Spirits
Research interests
- Early modern trans studies
- Genderqueer embodiment
- Demonology
- Spirits
Publications
Additional publications
Conference Papers
- CDN "Daemons, Myths, and Monsters: Narratives of technology in the age of artificial intelligence"; Center for Digital Narrative, University of Bergen, May 2026: "'Nay, let me have one book more': Queerly embodied early modern chatbot spirits."
- Society for Renaissance Studies "Interconnections"; Bristol, July 2025: "Genderqueer Parenthood in Paradise Lost and Order and Disorder"
- BritGrad 2025; Shakespeare Institute, Stratford-upon-Avon, June 2025: "Genderqueer Parenthood in Paradise Lost and Order and Disorder"
- BritGrad 2024; Shakespeare Institute, Stratford-upon-Avon, June 2024: "Demonologists’ Genderqueer Apparitions: How Bessie Graham’s “low and ghoustie” Voice Condemned Her."
- Queer and Trans Philologies; Cambridge, March 2024: "Ariel and all its Quality: How Notional Gender Shaped Nonhuman Genderqueerness in The Tempest."
- BritGrad 2023; Shakespeare Institute, Stratford-upon-Avon, September 2023: "'Queerying' Early Modern Discussions of Sex and Gender through Literary Spirits"
- BVSN "Shakespeare and X..."; Høgskolen i Innlandet, Norway, September 2022: "Shakespeare and Nonbinary Embodiment in Performances of The Tempest"
- "Decriminalizing History" Exhibit with accompanying workshop with Mieke Bal; University of Bergen, Norway, September 2022: essay to accompany "Nostrxs Intersex"