I am a PhD student based in the School of English at the University of Leeds, where I also teach contemporary literature. Situated across literary studies, disability studies, and the medical humanities, my thesis explores contemporary narratives of mental illness across various genres of life writing. My research investigates how writers with experiences of mental illness grapple with the challenges of producing self-narrative about mental distress in literarily innovative texts that test the boundaries of personhood and autobiography. I also reflect upon the consequences of such texts for further developing critical medical humanities methodologies.
I am interested in publishing pieces that showcase the diversity and richness of work being undertaken across the medical humanities at all levels of scholarship. Alongside my research interests in mental health, trauma, and autobiography, I am particularly committed to curating writing that provokes us to think more critically about the scope and methodologies of the field; with this in mind I’d especially like to encourage people working on the intersections of medical humanities with feminisms, queer theory, transgender studies, postcolonial studies, and disability studies to get in touch.
See what Katrina has been posting on The Polyphony here.