updated February 2022
Dr Emma Seaber
Department of English, King’s College London
emma.seaber@kcl.ac.uk
Education
2021 – King’s College London – PhD English Literature
Thesis: “Occult Anorexia: The Unseen Forces of Anorexia Life-writing“
Supported by a Wellcome Trust Doctoral Studentship in Medical Humanities
Supervisors: Dr Jane Elliott, Prof Brian Hurwitz & Dr Jon Day (following Prof Hurwitz’s retirement in June 2020)
2015 – King’s College London – MSc Medical Humanities, Distinction
Dissertation: “The body in prison: Bad Girls’ presentation of women’s corporeal subjectivity in carceral spaces”
Shortlisted (one of ten) for the John Sunley Prize, The Howard League for Penal Reform
2011 – University of Manchester MA English & American Studies (Gender, Sexuality & Culture)
Dissertation: “Spirit Possession and the Malevolent Supernatural in the Poetry of Anna Margolin & Celia Dropkin”
2010 – University of Exeter – BA English with Study in North America, Class 1
2009 – Vassar College, NY, USA – Study Abroad
Publications
Seaber, Emma. “Reading Disorders: Pro-eating Disorder Rhetoric and Anorexia Life-Writing”. Literature and Medicine 34.2 (2016): 484-508. (Open access)
Grants, Prizes & Funding Awards
2020 King’s Education Award (Teaching) with Special Mention
2017 King’s College London Faculty of Arts and Humanities Small Event Grant – £2,000
2017 British Society for Literature and Science Winter Symposium Grant – £500
2017 King’s College London Graduate School Conference Fund – £300.
2017 King’s College London English Department Conference Fund – £150.
2016 The Howard League for Penal Reform, John Sunley Prize (shortlisted).
2015 Wellcome Trust Medical Humanities PhD Studentship — £90,053.
2011 Cosmo Blog Awards (shortlisted) for Best Student Blogger.
2007 Gershwin Hotel Artist in Residence (poetry), New York, NY.
Teaching Experience
King’s College London English Department
2021/22 — Writing Race, Writing Gender
2019/20 — Introduction to American Literature
2018/19 — Convenor, Becoming Researchers
2017/18 — Introducing Literary Theories
— BA English Dissertation supervision
2016/17 — Introducing Literary Theories
I also acted as a Writing Mentor to children aged 8-13 for Ministry of Stories, a Hackney-based creative writing charity, in 2018-19.
Departmental Activities
Postgraduate Representative, Diversity & Inclusion Committee, King’s English Department, 2019-2020.
Co-organiser “Metaphor in Literature and Science” British Society for Literature and Science Winter Symposium, King’s College London, November 4 2017.
Co-organiser “Just Women and Violence” Research Day, English Department, King’s College London, May 2 2017.
Convenor King’s English Department biweekly postgraduate seminar series The Abstract, 2016-7.
Policy Work & Public Engagement Activities
Research and Policy Advisor (volunteer) for Beat, 2017 – present.
Channel 4 News, Channel 4 Television, March 14 2016.
Interview with Jane Deith – public misconceptions of anorexia nervosa.
Shelagh Fogarty, LBC Radio, March 14 2016.
Discussing public misconceptions and anorexia.
“Bodies” Footnotes, KCL Radio, February 17 2016.
Discussing body image and eating disorders in the media.
Academic Citizenship
Peer reviewer for Literature and Medicine.
Peer reviewer for Contemporary Women’s Writing.
Selected conference presentations & invited talks
“Occult Anorexia: The Unseen Forces of Anorexia Life-writing”. In/Visibility Conference, Northern Network for Medical Humanities Research, Durham University, April 2021.
“Corporal punishment: sexual exploitation, justice and body/violence in narrating women’s prison experiences” Conflicted Bodies: Feminist and Queer Approaches to Militarism and Violence, Goldsmiths University, September 2017.
“Re-reading ‘Anxiety’ Rituals in Anorexia Nervosa: A Literary Perspective” Cultures of Anxiety, University of Bristol, June 2017.
“Corporal Punishment: Radical Feminism, Justice and Violence in Captivity” Just Women and Violence Research Day, King’s College London, May 2017.
“Encrypting Anorexia: Textual Disturbance, Semiotic Anarchy and Radical Literacy Practices in Diaries of Anorexia Nervosa”. Talking Bodies Biennial Conference, University of Chester, UK, April 2017.
“Consuming and Regurgitating Culture: Textual Practices and “Pro-ana” in Early Countercultural Anorexia Nervosa Narratives”. Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association Annual Conference, San Diego, USA, April 2017.
“Ill/literacy: Reading and writing anorexia nervosa as a textually transmitted disease”. Exeter Postgraduate Medical Humanities Conference, University of Exeter, UK, July 2016.
“A new web epidemic? Early counter-cultural eating disorder narratives and the progression of pro-anorexia”. Oxford English Graduate Conference, University of Oxford, UK, 3 June 2016.
“Exploring health care provision, access and control in the women’s criminal justice system through contemporary television drama”. Orange is the New Black and New Perspectives on the Women in Prison Genre, Edinburgh Napier University, UK, 5 June 2015.
“Threat, terror and medical violence in young adult novels about anorexia nervosa”. Centre for the History of Science, Technology and Medicine Lunchtime Seminar Series, University of Manchester, 12 May 2015 (invited talk).
“Anorexia as a Reading Disorder: Understanding the Pro-Anorexia Phenomenon as a Textual Contagion”. Narrative and Health Behavioral Science: 7th International Conference of Health Behavioral Sciences, London, UK, September 2014.
Ill/literacy 