Gust Burns is a doctoral candidate in English at the University of Washington. His dissertation examines the prohibition of human capacity through mixed readings of artistic works, Black Studies, Marxist theory, and philosophy. He co-organized the biannual undercommon conference ELABORATION, and the HAPTICS graduate research cluster at the Walter Chapin Simpson Center for the Humanities. He received the Allan and Mary Kollar Endowed Fellowship for graduate students in Art History and English (2020-21), and he was selected as a graduate research fellow of the Society of Scholars at the Simpson Center (Summer 2022). He is also an experimental composer and musician.