Dr Sarah Bernstein, University of Edinburgh
Postdoctoral Fellow, January - August 2018
My research focuses on the politics of care and community in modern and contemporary women’s writing. My PhD, at the University of Edinburgh, argued that women writing in the period from 1949-1979 mobilise a ‘social-scientific imagination’ to think through the British welfare state during its ‘golden age.’
Project: Difficult Women and the Common Good: The Politics of Care in Experimental Women's Writing
My current project theorises a phenomenon in contemporary literary fiction, the ‘difficult woman’, by placing her in a longer lineage to show that she emerged as a cultural figure at odds with the state at precise historical moments. I explore the aesthetics and politics of this figure in order to highlight her importance as a political entity, to show that she can be a force for social justice, for the ‘common good’.