Moira P. Armstrong is a PhD candidate in American Studies at Rutgers University-Newark with research interests in modern U.S. histories of gender and sexuality, interdisciplinary disability studies, and the public humanities.
My current project explores histories of kinship and deviance, using interdisciplinary approaches from queer history and asexual and aromantic studies. I trace a social and intellectual history of how people in the U.S. have articulated and navigated amatonormativity and alternative kinships, situating these examples as aromantic resonances.
I also research COVID-19, drawing on approaches from disability studies and public history to understand the impact of the ongoing pandemic on disabled communities, and work as a research assistant for the Rutgers Anti-Eugenics and Reparative Action Lab, exploring the histories and legacies of the eugenics movement at Rutgers University.
My recent publications include articles in Disability Studies Quarterly, Graduate History Review, and Memory Studies.
I am also dedicated to public humanities work. At Rutgers, I've worked with the Oral History Archive, P3 Collaboratory, Mellon Sawyer Seminar "Potentialities of Justice: Collective Reparative Futures," and Queer Newark Oral History Project on oral histories and public scholarship events.
I've also contributed to archival projects and exhibits for the Montclair History Center, OutHistory, Queer Britain, and the Museum of Transology and provided dramaturgy for Burning Attic Theatre Company, New Jersey Play Lab, and First Kiss Theater.
Find samples of my public humanities work here:
I've also held teaching assistantships for the courses 9/11 in United States History, Intro to Disability Studies, and Sexuality and Activism, bridging the American Studies, History, Urban Education, and Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies departments.
I regularly present at national conferences, including the American Historical Association, National Women's Studies Association, Oral History Association, and Sexuality Studies Association, and have won several best paper awards. My research has been supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Huntington Library, the University of Minnesota Andersen Research Scholars Program, and internal grants from the Center for Race and Politics in America, the Graduate School Newark, and American Studies Department.
I hold an M.A. with distinction in gender, sexuality, and culture from Birkbeck, University of London, where my thesis, "Choosing to Remember: A Queer Disabled History of the COVID-19 Pandemic in England," won the Lynne Segal Prize for best dissertation related to gender and sexuality studies. I also hold bachelor's degrees in English and history, summa cum laude with honors, from Kent State University.