Current PhD Students

Wiktoria Tunska

Thesis Title:

Community of Emotions: Brexit, Contemporary Literature, and Affect

Supervisor:

Dr Alexandra Kingston-Reese

Description:

My thesis explores the emotional aspect of Brexit in contemporary novels. Building on scholarship in affect studies, I consider how writers capture the affective relations and emotional climate of pre-Brexit and post-Brexit Britain, arguing that ‘Brexit affects’ were present in British literary imagination before the referendum. The urgency of this thesis lies in its synthesis of late twentieth, and early twenty-first century theories and literary representations of affect to the current socio-political situation and establishing a palpable relationship between the poetics, affect, and ethics in the writing of the authors such as Ali Smith, Jonathan Coe, and Bernardine Evaristo.

I hold a BA in Polish Philology from the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan and completed my MA in English Literature at Cardiff University. My PhD research is funded by the White Rose College of the Arts and Humanities.

Email: wmt504@york.ac.uk