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T.J. Jourian is a Middle-Eastern Armenian, queer, and trans writer, recovering academic, and aspiring essayist/memoirist. To keep himself and his cat fed and sheltered, he currently does too much--a hodgepodge of part-time and contract gigs, facilitating trainings and consulting all kinds of organizations, so workplaces can suck a little less. T.J. loves working with changemakers—a title he used to hold—reclaiming their time and energy. Since 2019, after unceremoniously leaving academia, the arena of almost all his past writing, T.J. has been on a quest to hone his non-academic writing voice to tell the stories itching to bust out of him. Stories that are personal and political, local and global, individual and communal, and most of all stories that make you look at something from an entirely divergent perspective. He earned his doctorate in higher education, studying how trans masculine college students conceptualize masculinity, which is what started him on his pursuits of divergences, thresholds, and the pathways we choose versus the pathways we are given. T.J. has published extensively in academic journals, books, monographs, and blogs, including co-editing volumes about queerness in higher education and those who queer higher education. He still likes to dabble in research, where he gets to examine race, gender, and sexuality, with particular attention to masculinity, transness, and racialization; LGBTQ+ centers and practitioners; and trans*ing constructs and methodologies. Born in Beirut and raised in Cyprus, T.J. is a twice over immigrant who blends in more than he wants to. After giving Michigan, Burlington, Nashville, Chicago, and Michigan (a 2nd time) a chance, he finally decided to stay put in Philadelphia, on unceded lands of the Lenni Lenape, where he lives with Bella, the prettiest and hungriest orange cat he’s ever known. |
Other Publications:
Queerness as Being in Higher Education: Narrating the Insider/Outsider Paradox as LGBTQ+ Scholars and Practitioners
Queerness as Doing in Higher Education: Narrating the Insider/Outsider Paradox as LGBTQ+ Scholars and Practitioners
Envisioning a Critical and Liberatory Approach to Trans and Queer Center(ed) Diversity Work
Queerness as Being in Higher Education: Narrating the Insider/Outsider Paradox as LGBTQ+ Scholars and Practitioners
Queerness as Doing in Higher Education: Narrating the Insider/Outsider Paradox as LGBTQ+ Scholars and Practitioners
Envisioning a Critical and Liberatory Approach to Trans and Queer Center(ed) Diversity Work
Interview with T.J. Jourian
about his story "Stay or Go"
Honorable Mention for The Scribes Prize
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Question?
I am inspired by writers who can capture the fantastical and make it entirely plausible, who create new possibilities out of impossible realities, siphon out the silent power just underneath the skin of the so-called powerless, connect and elucidate complexities in the smartest and simplest ways concurrently, and who re-engage with pain—theirs and ours—and don’t sanitize it in order to heal from it. These include writers like akwaeke emezi, Melissa Febos, Dean Spade, Ijeoma Oluo, Elif Shafak, Carmen Maria Machado, Mikki Kendall, and Rabih Alameddine.
Question?
I’m not sure exactly what’s immediately next, but I have a sense of what I’m building towards—segmented/mosaic memoir, made up of a collection of essays, both discrete from each other and intertwined. The connective tissue of those essays is itself a work-in-progress, themed around breath, healing, and wholeness (how my identities do and don’t interact with each other, and the systems and institutions I/they navigate). Structurally, I am experimenting with parallelism, patterning, and cross-cutting between story-idea-memory-history. Right now, I am seeking out residencies that allow me to step away from the daily grind and give me the time and space to keep building. In the meantime, I’ll share bits and piece on my Substack.
What do you want readers to do with your writing?
Personally, I write to awaken myself to the deepest, darkest parts of me, to answer questions swirling in my heart that won’t quiet, and to find connection through those deep dark places with others with their own disquieting questions. So, I want readers to emote and react to the questions that my writing raises for them. Other than self-hatred, it almost doesn’t matter what the emotions are—anger, resonance, joy, comfort, anxiety—as long as there is one (or more). An emotion that reflects something back to the reader about themselves, their relationships, their worlds, and their worldviews – what shapes them, what changes them, what destroys them. Regardless of what the emotions are, I want my writing to stir up desires to upend repression in all its forms and to (re)create universes based on connection and relationality.
I am inspired by writers who can capture the fantastical and make it entirely plausible, who create new possibilities out of impossible realities, siphon out the silent power just underneath the skin of the so-called powerless, connect and elucidate complexities in the smartest and simplest ways concurrently, and who re-engage with pain—theirs and ours—and don’t sanitize it in order to heal from it. These include writers like akwaeke emezi, Melissa Febos, Dean Spade, Ijeoma Oluo, Elif Shafak, Carmen Maria Machado, Mikki Kendall, and Rabih Alameddine.
Question?
I’m not sure exactly what’s immediately next, but I have a sense of what I’m building towards—segmented/mosaic memoir, made up of a collection of essays, both discrete from each other and intertwined. The connective tissue of those essays is itself a work-in-progress, themed around breath, healing, and wholeness (how my identities do and don’t interact with each other, and the systems and institutions I/they navigate). Structurally, I am experimenting with parallelism, patterning, and cross-cutting between story-idea-memory-history. Right now, I am seeking out residencies that allow me to step away from the daily grind and give me the time and space to keep building. In the meantime, I’ll share bits and piece on my Substack.
What do you want readers to do with your writing?
Personally, I write to awaken myself to the deepest, darkest parts of me, to answer questions swirling in my heart that won’t quiet, and to find connection through those deep dark places with others with their own disquieting questions. So, I want readers to emote and react to the questions that my writing raises for them. Other than self-hatred, it almost doesn’t matter what the emotions are—anger, resonance, joy, comfort, anxiety—as long as there is one (or more). An emotion that reflects something back to the reader about themselves, their relationships, their worlds, and their worldviews – what shapes them, what changes them, what destroys them. Regardless of what the emotions are, I want my writing to stir up desires to upend repression in all its forms and to (re)create universes based on connection and relationality.