About

Harris Kornstein is a scholar and artist whose research and practice broadly focuses on queer play through contemporary technologies and digital cultures, media art/activism, visual culture, disability, and queer and trans studies. 

Their current book project considers what we might learn from drag performers to creatively counter many of the harms of digital technologies (related to surveillance, artificial intelligence, online harassment, disinformation, and so on), through playful techniques of misuse, obfuscation, and reinvention. They are also co-editing an anthology How to Be Disabled in a Pandemic (NYU Press, forthcoming 2025) analyzing the experiences of disabled New Yorkers during the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic.

Harris’s research has been published in journals like Surveillance & Society and Curriculum Inquiry, alongside several edited volumes such as Queer Data Studies, and their essays have appeared in publications like The Guardian, Wired, and Salon. Additionally, their research has been supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship, and they are the recipient of an Early Career Scholars Award from the University of Arizona Office of the Provost and a Helen H. Chatfield Impact Award from the College of Humanities.

As a media artist, curator, and drag queen, they have presented work at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Institute for Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, ONE Archives, and numerous universities, galleries, and festivals. They have also published two children’s books.

Harris holds a PhD in Media, Culture & Communication from NYU, an MFA in Digital Arts & New Media from UC Santa Cruz, and a BA from Swarthmore College.