English Graduate Student Awarded James J. Hudson Doctoral Fellowship in the Humanities

MaryKate Messimer

University of Arkansas graduate student MaryKate Messimer has been selected for the 2018-19 James J. Hudson Doctoral Fellowship in the Humanities. Messimer is a third-year graduate student of English in the Department of English at the J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences.

Her dissertation, “Apocalyptic California: Exploring the Ecological Frontier in American Literature,” is a ground-breaking study of the representation of ecological apocalypse in a tradition of eminent writers, from Ursula K. Le Guin through contemporary acclaimed writers including Octavia Butler and Margaret Atwood.

A complex and theoretically sophisticated analysis that draws on ecofeminism, queer ecology and utopian theories, the dissertation not only provides original readings of individual texts by significant authors, but it also makes a compelling argument about the intersection of gender and climate change and the construction of literary tradition. Messimer makes a strong case for considering the numerous apocalyptic novels set in California as an appropriate synecdoche for the United States, and ultimately, the entire world’s struggle with catastrophic climate change.

It is a truism about science fiction that it is the literary genre where humanity imagines its future and where we can imagine solutions to contemporary problems. At the same time, futuristic settings can permit radical questioning of gender roles, and even human bodies. By providing a careful and comparative study through her chapters’ pairing of critical theories and literary texts, Messimer describes the changes in ecological thought from the 1970s to the present. In the process, she makes the case that these novels offer us unique spaces from which to consider how gender and binary patterns can exacerbate the damage caused by ecological disaster.

The Hudson Fellowship is awarded to outstanding doctoral candidates who have completed their coursework and are working on dissertations in comparative literature, English, history or philosophy. The fellowship, which comes with a cash prize of $1,500, was established in 1986 in memory of James J. Hudson, a longtime professor of history and former dean of the University of Arkansas Graduate School.

This story originally appeared in the University of Arkansas’ Newswire publication. Please visit news.uark.edu for more stories like this.