My UM
My UM
Search

Eliza Steinbock (E.A.)

Eliza Steinbock is a Full Professor and Chair in Transgender Studies, Art, and Cultural Activism in the Department of Literature and Art. Since 2026, they direct the Faculty of Arts and Social Science's research programme Arts, Media and Culture (AMC). They lead interdisciplinary research on inclusion and exclusion in art, culture, media, and heritage sectors, focusing on minoritarian identities, particularly queer and trans* experiences. Together with Susan Stryker and Jian Neo Chen, Eliza co-edits the new Duke book series for critical trans studies, ASTERISK: Gender, Trans-, and All That Comes After. They authored Shimmering Images: Trans Cinema, Embodiment, and the Aesthetics of Change (Duke, 2019 * best first book awarded by the Society for Cinema and Media Studies) and is co-editor of Art and Activism in the Age of Systemic Crisis: Aesthetic Resilience (Routledge, 2020). They co-edited  with Yv E. Nay the special issue ofTSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly "Europa"  (2021) on the practice of critical trans studies in the European context.  

Steinbock headed the national NWO project “The Critical Visitor,” exploring intersectional inclusion in Dutch cultural institutions, and led the Dutch team in the European consortium “Perverse Collections,” investigating queer and trans archives across Europe. (Both projects concluded in 2025.) Their award-winning work includes a monograph on trans cinema aesthetics, numerous edited volumes, and over 40 peer-reviewed essays. Steinbock also curates exhibitions and advises cultural institutions internationally. Identifying as a non-binary trans person, they integrate personal experience with scholarly inquiry, advancing trans cultural production studies and emphasizing visual representation.

Open access edited volume in Dutch and English, The Critical Visitor: Changing Heritage Practices || De kritische bezoeker: erfgoedpraktijken in verandering (2023) Download it here. 

Open access book authored with Sandro Weilenmann, Field Notes on Artistic Participation in Europe’s Trans and Queer Archives (2025 ) Download it here.

In FASoS Steinbock is a member the Centre for Gender and Diversity (CGD), a platform that aims to connect researchers in the fields of gender and diversity studies, to facilitate networking with societal partners, and to enhance public-facing scholarship.​ They were director of the CGD from 2022-2025. Additionally, Steinbock is an affiliated researcher to the Maastricht Centre for Arts and Culture, Conservation and Heritage (MACCH).

Expertises

My professorship in Transgender Studies, Art and Cultural Activism is the first humanities-based chair in transgender studies in the world. Grounded in a trans studies approach that contests the pathologization, objectification, and exoticization of difference, I aim to bring awareness to lived experiences of LGBTIQ+ communities and push for positive change. My research agenda is driven by the concern that despite decades-long gains in social acceptance, the ongoing culture wars stoking fear of sexual and gender diverse people is leading to major backslides in cultural and public participation. I specialize in participatory research that involves stakeholders to comprehend as well as intervene in the meteoric rise in transgender imagery, discourses, and debate. Current discourses and legislation that claim transgender people “don’t exist” makes establishing trans heritage a pressing issue that I respond to directly through research collaborations with museums and archives.

I combine roles of scholar, curator, and consultant to cultural institutions, for example, producing a photography show “Radical Tenderness: Trans for Trans Portraiture” for the Alice Austen House on Staten Island funded by the National Endowment for the Arts (2021), being a member of the “Circle of Critical Friends” for the Schwules Museum in Berlin (on-going), and advising the National Museum for World Cultures on their “What a Genderful World” exhibition (2018-19).

Career history

Apr 2024 -        Full Professor 2 Chair in Transgender Studies, Art and Cultural Activism, Department of Literature and Art, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Maastricht University (1,0 fte)

July 2023-2024  Associate Professor 1 Gender and Diversity Studies, Department of Literature and Art, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Maastricht University (1,0 fte)

Sep 2021-2023  Associate Professor 2 Gender and Diversity Studies, Department of Literature and Art, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Maastricht University (1,0 fte)

2018 – 2021      Assistant Professor 1 Cultural Analysis, Centre for the Arts in Society, Faculty of Humanities, Leiden University (1.0 fte)

2014 –2018       Postdoctoral Researcher with NWO Veni funding, Centre for the Arts in Society, Faculty of Humanities, Leiden University (0.8 fte)

2014 –2018       Assistant Professor 2 Film and Literary Studies, Centre for the Arts in Society, Faculty of Humanities, Leiden University (0.2 fte)         

2012 –2014       Lecturer Literature, Arts, Media/Cultural Studies, Department of Literature and Art, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Maastricht University (0.6-1.0 fte) 

2010 –2012       Lecturer, Faculty of Humanities, Amsterdam University College (0.7 fte)

2008 –2009       Lecturer, Department of Media Studies, University of Amsterdam (0.2 fte)

2006 –2011       AiO with funded PhD position, Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis, Faculty of Humanities, University of Amsterdam (0.7 fte)

EDUCATION

2011    PhD in Cultural Analysis (awarded best ASCA dissertation-annual cash prize) | Dept. Media Studies and Literary Studies, Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis, University of Amsterdam, NL: awarded 17 June 2011. Supervisor: Prof. dr. Maaike Bleeker

2004    Master in Cultural Studies (with distinction-highest possible honor) | School of Fine Art, History of Art and Cultural Studies, University of Leeds, UK: awarded 1 September 2004.

Other Professional Activities (Current)

2022 – present: Director of the Centre for Gender and Diversity, research unit in Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Maastricht University.

2023 – 2026: Member of the Appointment Advisory Committee (benoemingsadviescommissie UD en UHD / BAC) 

2021 – present: Maastricht University Diversity & Inclusivity Advisory Council, chaired by University President.

2021 – present: Board Research Program Arts, Media and Culture, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Maastricht University.

2021 – 2024: Educational Program Committee for Masters Arts and Culture specialization Art and Heritage.

2021 – present: Course Coordinator and Team Member Masters Arts and Culture specialization Contemporary Literature and Art: Cultural Interventions and Social Justice.

Editorial Board of Journal

2023 – 2026 Journal of Cinema and Media Studies

2021 – present Culture Caleidoscoop 

2020 – present TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly 

2016 – present Capacious: Journal for Emerging Affective Inquiry.

Book Series Editor  

2019 – present: ASTERISK: Gender, Trans-, and All That Comes After (Duke University Press with Susan Stryker and Jian Neo Chen)

SUPERVISION OF POSTDOCTORAL FELLOWS

  1. Supervisor, Dr. Sandro Weilenmann, “Artistic Participation in Queer and Trans (Counter)Archives.” Funded by JPI- CH, Perverse Collections Project, Department of Literature and Art, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Maastricht University (September 2023 – August 2025)
  2. Co-supervisor, Dr. Cyd Sturgess, “Trans/Missions: The Politics of Identity and Precarity in Transgender Film Festivals in Sheffield, Amsterdam, and Berlin,” from The University of Sheffield to be based at Utrecht University (With Dr. Marijke de Valck, Funding Leverhulme Study Abroad Scholarship February 2022 - December 2022)

SUPERVISION OF PHD CANDIDATES

  1. Promoter/Daily Supervisor, Pieter du Plessis, “Belonging and Unbelonging in Amsterdam’s Het Zuid-Afrikahuis: A Decolonial Study of Dutch Whiteness in Relation to Afrikaner Whiteness,” Maastricht University (With Dr. Sophie Withaeckx and Prof dr. Margriet van der Waal, Funded by NWO PhDs in the Humanities, 2023-2027)
  2. [Co-Supervisor] Advisor for Minor Field of Trans Studies, Raphaëlle Bessette-Viens, “Crafting: Experimental Filmmaking and the Objects of Trans* Embodiment,” Concordia University (With Dr. Arseli Dokumacı and Dr. Matt Soar, Funded by Concordia)
  3. Co-Promoter/First co-supervisor, Valentina Curandi, “Last Will and Testament: Handling Materialities in Wishes Disposition for the Afterlife of Artistic Practice,” Maastricht University (With Dr. Christoph Raush and Dr. Ulrike Scholtes, Funded by MERIAN PhD in the Arts scholarship, 2023-2028)
  4. Co-promoter, Sinin Nakhle, “Translating Bodies of Protest: Contestation, Art, and Media in Contemporary Beirut,” University of Amsterdam (With Prof. dr. Thomas Poell, 2022-2026, Funded by NWO-PhDs in the Humanities)
  5. Supervisory committee member, Tessel Veneboer, “The Queer Potential of Fragmentation: Sexuality and Identity in Kathy Acker’s Work,” Ghent University, Belgium (With Supervisor Prof. dr. Gert Buelens, and Supervisory Committee members Dr. Paul Preciado and Dr. Anneleen Masschelein, Funding from FWO 2020-2024)
  6. Co-promoter 1, Thato Magano, “Sodom’s Golden Age: Sodomitical Discourses in Seventeenth Century Dutch Empire,“ Leiden University and Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey (With Prof. dr. Wim van Anrooij and Prof. dr. Andrew Parker, Funding from Rutgers for a Cotutelle degree Sep. 2020-2023)
  7. Promoter/Daily supervisor, Noah Littel, “Founding an Inclusive Space: Legacies of Alternative Archiving Practices in the Netherlands, Germany and the United Kingdom” Maastricht University (With Prof. dr. Monika Baár and Prof. dr. Hester Dibbits, Funding from NWO Feb. 2020-2025)
  8. Promoter/Daily supervisor, Liang-kai Yu, “Queering the Museum: Contemporary Artists and Curators as ‘Critical Visitors’ and Their Creative Intervention into Dutch, British, and German Cultural Institutions,” Maastricht University (With Dr. Vivian van Saaze and Dr. Dirk van den Heuvel, from 2019 with NWO funding from Feb. 2020-2025)