SGSAH Researcher awarded Holstein Dissertation Fellowship

Published: 6 July 2021

Emma McCabe, a first year researcher at the University of Stirling, has been awarded a Holstein Dissertation Fellowship from the University of California, Riverside for the academic year 2021-2022. Read more about her achievement and this competitive annual program.

Emma McCabe, a SGSAH-funded researcher at the University of Stirling, has been awarded a Holstein Dissertation Fellowship from the University of California, Riverside for the academic year 2021-2022. 

Emma is in her first year of her research at the University of Stirling, co-supervised by the University of Glasgow.The idea behind her research project is to construct a historically indebted trans-inclusive feminism that goes back to early modern gynaecology, physiology, and performance, to demonstrate the inherent instability and queerness of the female body. She does this by applying an apophatic (mystical) theo-philosophical and literary framework to Renaissance scholarship, reinterpreting negation and absence as central to cultural reshapings of biological sex and gender roles. The working title of her thesis is “‘Now thou art an O without a figure’: Early Modern Performativity as a Trans-Feminine Hermeneutics of Absence”. 

Emma is looking forward to utilising the resources of the UC campuses and the Huntington Library, all of which are home to rare collections of early modern texts in the history of science & medicine. Her mentor for 2021-2022 will be Prof. Arthur L. Little, UCLA.

The Holstein Dissertation Fellowship is annually competitive and open to both US and international doctoral students working within the area of queer and/or transgender studies in Religion. Depending on available funding, 4-6 applicants are selected each year. As part of the award, Fellows are free to choose one mentor from any of the UC campuses in Southern California to work with during the Fellowship year.

Click here to find out more about the Holstein Dissertation Fellowship.

UC Riverside will be hosting their annual Queer and Transgender Studies in Religion conference in February 2022. If you are interested in presenting or know anyone who might be, see their Call for Proposals (Deadline, 15 August 2021): https://religiousstudies.ucr.edu/holstein-chair/ucr-queer-transgender-studies-in-religion-conference/  


First published: 6 July 2021

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