缅北禁地

I am a working on the interplay of affect, form and materiality in 17th-century poetry and am currently at 缅北禁地 on a two-year fellowship until September 2027. My work is funded by the European Union under Horizon Europe.

Current Work

My current research focuses on the interplay of affect, form and materiality in 17th-century poetry. It seeks to trace how affect or emotion is formally, materially and cognitively entangled with reading a literary text – or, in other words, how (i.e., by what means) does a text make readers feel?

The 17th century offers a particularly fascinating body of literature to research this: it is the time when some of the foundational philosophical texts underlying modern affect theory were written (Descartes and Spinoza) but mostly 17th-century writing precedes these theoretical insights and is informed by a wholistic understanding according to which affect and cognition, mind and body are thoroughly entangled.

In my research, I focus on both metaphysical poetry, which despite its frequent focus on affect-centred themes was historically criticised as being overly cerebral and incapable of “moving the affections” (according to Samuel Johnson), and on poetry by 17th-century women poets (such as Hester Pulter, Margaret Cavendish or Mary Carey).

Other Expertise

I also have expertise in 21st-century literature and theatre, particularly in the context of literary ethics and ecocriticism. I'm the author of Fictions of Infinity: Levinasian Ethics in 21st-Century Novels (2020) and co-editor of a forthcoming Handbook of Literary Ethics and have co-edited a special issue of the Journal of Contemporary Drama in English on Critical Theatre Ecologies (JCDE 10.1, 2022). I am also a board member (treasurer) of the (CDE).