Dr. Rachel Murray

Biography

Rachel Murray is a Lecturer in the Department of Literature and the Environment at the University of Bristol. Her research focuses on modernist twentieth-century literature, animal studies, and blue humanities. She is co-director of the Centre for Environmental Humanities and has published the book 'Modernist Exoskeleton: Insects, War, Literary Form' with Edinburgh University Press. This work argues for the importance of insects within modernism's formal innovations and their engagement with key socio-political concerns, particularly questioning the boundaries of the human experience. Her current book project, 'Marine Attachments', examines aesthetic and affective responses to marine life in modern and contemporary poetry, focusing on writers like T. S. Eliot and Sylvia Plath. Rachel is actively involved in environmental humanities research, edited an essay collection titled 'Blue Extinction in Literature, Art, and Culture', and has interests in psychoanalysis, queer studies, and affect theory. She teaches various units in the MA program, including 'Literature and the Environment' and 'Themes in Environmental Humanities'.

Research Interests

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