
ABOUT
JOCELYN SEARS
I am an incoming fifth-year PhD candidate in the Department of English at Harvard University
and the recipient of an AM degree from the department. I am also a 2021–2022 Doctoral Fellow
with the Harvard Mellon Urban Initiative.
My dissertation research focuses on narrative voice and literary form in 20th- and 21st-century dystopian novels. My wider academic interests include narratology, book history, feminist studies, queer studies, trauma studies, literary modernism, contemporary poetry, and speculative fiction.
I also work as a researcher for iHeartMedia's podcast division, on shows including
Under the Influence (where I make a cameo in Episode 7) and a number of
historical and cultural podcasts.
Before coming to Harvard, I received my BA from Stanford University, graduating with honors in English and a minor in Feminist and Queer Studies, and I completed an MFA in Creative Writing (Poetry) at the University of Virginia, where I held a Poe-Faulkner Fellowship.
I spent two years as a staff researcher for the magazine mental_floss. and have published cultural and historical articles in venues including mental_floss, JSTOR Daily, Atlas Obscura, and Racked.
My poetry has appeared in BOAAT, Apogee, Southern Indiana Review, PANK,
Hawaii Pacific Review, and other journals.