Annie Strausa

Candidate statement

I am a second year Ph.D. student in English Literature based primarily at the University of Bristol. My current project examines sensory and affective features of twentieth century women’s writing. Focusing on Virginia Woolf, Naomi Mitchison and Gloria Naylor, this is rooted in modernist concerns and contexts because it casts Naylor as an inheritor of female modernisms. Naylor’s writing, it also argues, opens up important new ways of understanding race-gender relations in modernist writing by white women. If accepted, I will present some of my ideas to the MSA community as part of a panel at Brooklyn 2020 in October. This demonstrates my commitment to Modernist Studies and to the MSA. However, in its expansion of modernism’s perimeters, my work also coheres with the MSA’s dedication to inclusivity and internationalism. These values largely inform my vision for the Graduate Student Representative role too. My main aim in this position will be to raise the profile of the MSA as a body that can benefit students. Via increased social media activity and by reaching out directly to universities, I will establish a supportive student network. As well as increasing effective dissemination of information about MSA events and publications to students, through this I will organise training days and reading groups tailored to student needs. I am especially keen to organise online work-in-progress sessions. In doing so, I will help other committee members to expand the MSA community and move modernist studies forward. My experience of managing social media, mailing lists, conferences and reading groups for the ‘Gender and Sexuality’ research cluster (attached to my funding body) will ensure success in this.