
Dr Christopher Kitson, Queen's University Belfast
Postdoctoral Fellow, September 2017 - June 2018
I specialise in literature of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, particularly literature and philosophy and intellectual history. I completed my PhD at Queen's University, Belfast. My first book project is a study of the Kantian sublime's legacy in the long nineteenth century.
Project: The Literary Thought Experiment
This project focuses on the relationship of literary fiction to the philosophical and scientific thought experiment, considering how the thought experiment renders questionable the distinctions between these discourses. It centres on historically-grounded readings of works by H. G. Wells and Virginia Woolf, authors engaging with a pivotal moment in the development of the thought experiment as an intellectual practice. These engagements provide case studies which can reconceptualise current debates in philosophy, including philosophy of science, on the nature and status of the thought experiment.