Degrees
2018, MA English, Wake Forest University
2016, BA English, Drexel University
Bio
Krysten Voelkner is a PhD candidate in the department of English and Comparative Literature. Her primary interests reside at the intersection of environmental humanities and contemporary Latinx literature. Recent publications of hers can be found in Aztlán: A Journal of Chicano Studies, The Trumpeter: Journal of Ecosophy, and Chiricú Journal: Latina/o Literatures, Arts, and Cultures. She is currently at work on her dissertation, which investigates the ways in which Latinx writers experiment with aesthetics of horror, dread, anxiety, and other ‘bad’ affects associated with the climate crisis. In this regard, she hopes to explore the affective ecologies of Latinx environmental literature and film as they offer ways of thinking within and beyond the Anthropocene.
Publications:
- “Vectors and Vermin: Gendered Violence and the Role of Insects in the Arthropoetics of Natalie Scenters-Zapico.” Chiricú Journal, vol. 6, no. 2, 2022.
- “Another Way of Seeing: Ecological Existentialism in Cortázar’s ‘Axolotl’.” The Trumpeter: Journal of Ecosophy, vol. 36, no. 1, 2021.
- “Memory, Temporality, and Communal Realization: Reading the Nomadic Subject in Rivera’s ...And the Earth Did Not Devour Him.” Aztlán: A Journal of Chicano Studies, vol. 45, no. 2, 2020.
Teaching Awards
- UNC Latina/o Studies Program Teaching Award (UNC Latina/o Studies Department), Spring 2022
- Erika Lindemann Award for Excellence in Teaching Composition in English 105 (UNC Department of English), Fall 2021.
- UNC Latina/o Studies Program Teaching Award (Fall 2020)
Awards
- UNC Department of English and Comparative Literature Early Stages Dissertation Fellowship, Summer 2022
- Nominee: David D. Anderson Award for Outstanding Essay in Midwestern Literary Studies, 2021
- Ruth Rose Richardson Award for outstanding record in the first year of graduate study, (UNC Department of English), 2019-20
- H. Broadus Jones MA Student Award for Excellence in English (Wake Forest University Department of English), Spring 2018