Research Interests

My research focuses on the ways in which literary texts and literary studies more generally can be of social, cultural, pedagogical and individual use, among others in contexts of health and illness. To explore these potentials, I draw on theories of usability and adaptation and postcritical approaches to understand the multiple and unexpected affordances of (small) forms, such as metaphors, stereotypes and (serial) narratives. My research investigates the practices at work in between polar opposites such as beneficial/harmful (e.g., illness metaphors, age stereotypes) and success/failure (e.g., aging) by looking into the creative strategies artists use to navigate these dualities and to explore them for their healing, therapeutic and reparative capacities. I have worked with literary texts, autobiographical writing and visual media (e.g., films, TV series) and have long-standing experience with working across disciplines and at the intersections of academic fields, such as age studies, Narrative Medicine and Medical Humanities.

My new research project focuses on political and cultural polarization and the role of cultural forms in polarized debates, such as abortion and older age in the 2024 US presidential election. I'm interested in the ways that cultural forms (such as the national symbol of the frontier and the traditional conversation narrative) are repurposed via aesthetic means to express ideological views on polarized topics. By focusing on cultural and aesthetic dimensions, this research contributes to the existing scholarship on polarization, which is so far dominated by political sciences and social psychology. 

American Studies, Medical Humanities, Narrative Medicine, Age Studies, uses of literature, metaphors, stereotypes, seriality, life writing, polarization