Anisha Gamblin

Profile

I have been at the University of Leeds since 2018, having begun my BA in English Literature (International). After attending Penn State University for a year in 2021, I began to develop an interest in postcolonial literature and the environmental humanities. This was further advanced when I became a postgraduate researcher in the School of English in 2022, completing my MA in Postcolonial Literary and Cultural Studies. In 2023, I was awarded a Leverhulme Trust Scholarship, and a place on the UK’s first Extinction Studies Doctoral Training Programme. My research is interested exploring how fictional worlds, by positioning themselves in that space-time that precedes extinction, challenge and subvert conventional ideas of what 'extinction' entails. Engaging with Indigenous stories of species loss, decline or suffering, I hope not only to map the connections between human and nonhuman life, but question what kinds of human-animal relations are possible in an age of ecological collapse.

In the summer of 2024, I took part in a research trip to Aotearoa New Zealand, where I explored national and university library archives of Māori literatures. Looking at fictional explorations of climate change and biodiveristy decline, I examined the extent to which Māori writers might intervene in and critique neoliberal political regimes that push marine species in the Pacific Ocean to near-extinction.

Responsibilities

• Postgraduate Representative 2024-2025
• Seminar Tutor

Research interests

I am part of a Doctoral Training Programme in Extinction Studies. My research sits between the School of English and the School of Philosophy, where I am working on a project about near-extinction narratives in Indigenous literatures of the Pacific. 

<h4>Research projects</h4> <p>Some research projects I'm currently working on, or have worked on, will be listed below. Our list of all <a href="https://ahc.leeds.ac.uk/dir/research-projects">research projects</a> allows you to view and search the full list of projects in the faculty.</p>

Qualifications

• BA English Literature (International)
• MA Postcolonial Literary and Cultural Studies

Student education

I teach on the core undergraduate module ‘Race, Writing and Decolonisation’. I have a special interest in postcolonial literatures and decolonial politics and I am committed to discussing these topics and incresing their accessibility to undergraduate students in any way that I can.

Teaching and helping guide undergraduate students is a keen interest of mine, and I welcome any enquiries or questions from students that I work with.