21st century literary representations of love and relationships in works with themes of disabilities, long-term illness or neurodivergence

The primary objective of this PhD project is to research the interaction in literature of love and relationships with themes of disabilities, ill-health or neurodivergence. You will build a 21st century corpus in which authors with and/or without these characteristics feature.

This project can be limited to English-language texts, potentially from one country to capture the national discourse, societal structures and health inequalities locally, or it can be designed as a comparative project with German-language or Finnish texts. Other language combinations may be possible depending on the availability of co-supervisors.

Furthermore, there is scope for an element of participatory research in working with community groups on creative expression of the research themes.

The lead supervisor Michael Gratzke is professor of comparative literature and a world-leading researcher into love and relationships. He has published extensively on love in literature from the 18th century to the present. He has previously worked with community groups using creative writing and practice-as-research methods to examine complex emotions.

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