ABOUT

JOCELYN SEARS

I am a third-year doctoral candidate in the Department of English at Harvard University and the recipient

of an AM degree from the department, where I am co-coordinator of the Twentieth-Century and Contemporary Literature Colloquium. I am also a 2020-2021 Canada Dissertation Research Fellow

at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, receiving support for my work on Margaret Atwood.

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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.

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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 podcasts. 

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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.