“Beginning with its unexpected scrutiny of Holinshed’s Chronicles, Glorious Bodies reveals a trans imaginary underpinning the theology of Shakespeare’s Sonnet 20, Webster’s animal prodigies, Donne’s resurrected bodies, and Miltonian biopolitics. With creativity, verve, and wit, Gordon masterfully—indeed gloriously—demonstrates the stakes of trans studies for early modern studies writ large.”

Valerie Traub, University of Michigan

“In this field-transforming book, Gordon accomplishes a double tour de force. He compellingly resurrects the trans-affirming capacity of many early modern theological categories explored in English literary works, thereby reclaiming trans life in our own moment as what it has always been: a sacred matter. Simultaneously, he shows how those categories’ enmeshment in early modern white world-making curtails their radical potential. Gordon’s gloriously intersectional vision of early modern trans studies is a revelation.”

Noémie Ndiaye, University of Chicago

“Glorious Bodies shows what’s possible when trans scholars write for trans readers. This book is ambitious in its scope, provocative in its style, and convincing in its claims—and, as Gordon makes clear, it is timely and urgent. We must consider carefully the terrain mined by transphobic thinkers—theology—and not concede its ground.”

Holly Dugan, George Washington University

“Glorious Bodies is a field-changing, original contribution to early modern literary and cultural studies, queer and trans studies, and the histories of religion and political theology. Gordon presents the trans potentials in religious texts in the full complexity of their contexts and erasures, and the book is successful not only in making a compelling case to bring theology back into premodern trans studies, but also in showing the urgent relevance of premodern trans studies for the current political moment.”

Simone Chess, Wayne State University

"Trans identity long predates the 20th century, according to this ambitious debut. . .  Delving into the literature of the Renaissance, mainly religious writing like sermons and saints’ lives, Gordon discovers evocative and often surreal examples of gender variance. Gordon offers these sources as proof that Renaissance-era people conceived of gender beyond the binary; he also uses them to challenge contemporary transphobia. . . . An insightful contextualization of today’s political battles over trans rights."

Publishers Weekly

"Gordon introduces his deeply interwoven themes: the political theology of transphobia, the complicity of secularism in transphobic violence and the recovery of a history of transition — all towards the politics of trans theology. Perhaps it is time, Gordon argues, to 'lean into the irrational pleasures and sublime possibilities of a nonsecular transness.' . . . With his jolting, rigorous book, Gordon reminds us not only of Jesus' otherness, but also that his otherness is inscribed on his very body, and on the bodies of his favorites."

National Catholic Reporter

"In this field-transforming monograph, Colby Gordon magisterially demonstrates that, in early modernity, 'transition happened, both socially and surgically, and that the significance of such alterations was glossed through the categories provided by theology.' . . . By drawing on early modern theology “as a resource for imagining projects of trans worldmaking” (16), Gordon reclaims trans life in our own times for what it has always been: a sacred matter. . . . Elegantly written, moving, and often irresistibly funny, Glorious Bodies is a revelatory monograph and a true gift to our field."

Modern Philology