Kelli Knox

RESEARCH INTERESTS:
Canadian literature; Victorian literature and culture; science, genetics, and ‘the scientist’ in writing; animal studies, ecocriticism, and posthumanism; comics and graphic narratives.

CURRENT RESEARCH: 
My current research focuses on the animal story in Canadian literature, especially within texts that can be classified as Bildungsromans. Using a materialist ecocritical approach, I investigate how animals and non-human culture play a role in personal and national self-identification, as well as meaning making within an ecological milieu. An animals’ position within the natural world, their roles as symbols or guides, their place within human communities, their relationship to time, and their subjection to interference and the human gaze are all aspects that my research takes into consideration. I also question whether the use of animals in Canadian texts has evolved parallel to evolutions of scientific thought and national sentiment.

CONFERENCES:
– “From Me, To You & Back Again: Generosity, Self-Interest, and The Community in Thomas Deloney’s Jack of Newbury.” Department of English MA Colloquium, Carleton University, Ottawa, ON. 3 July. 2019.

SERVICE:
– Committee Member, Department of English MA Colloquium, Carleton University, 2019.