Dr Hannah Boast

IASH Affiliate 2023-24
Dr Hannah Boast

Dr Hannah Boast is Chancellor’s Fellow at University of Edinburgh. They are the author of Hydrofictions: Water, Power and Politics in Israeli and Palestinian Literature (Edinburgh University Press, 2020) and shortlisted for the Association for the Study of Literature and Environment UK and Ireland (ASLE-UKI) Book Prize 2021. Hannah has held posts as Japan Society for the Promotion of Science Short-term Fellow at Aoyama Gakuin University, Tokyo, Lecturer/Assistant Professor and Ad Astra Fellow at University College Dublin, Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at University of Warwick, and Teaching Fellow in Contemporary and Postcolonial Literature at University of Birmingham. Hannah is Associate Editor of the journal Environmental Humanities and an Affiliate of the Edinburgh Futures Institute.

I am currently working on my second monograph, called Water Crisis and World Literature. This project looks comparatively at water crisis in contemporary literature from countries including Canada, India, South Africa, and the UK. I consider topics including drought, scarcity, water wars, pollution, infrastructure, science and expertise, and water justice. I am particularly interested in how literature registers experiences of hydromodernity and unequal access to water and sanitation, and how literary texts might help us to imagine more just and sustainable ways of living with water. As part of this project I have published articles on hydropolitics in the work of the Canadian poet Rita Wong, and on water contamination in American far-right popular culture. I have works in press on rivers in the contemporary Canadian long poem, and on water pollution in contemporary Palestinian writing. In its concern for cultural mediations of water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH), this project is situated between the Environmental Humanities and Medical Humanities.

I have a second project in progress on Palestinian and Israeli environmental imaginaries. This developed out of my first monograph and extends its focus to contemporary visual arts and culture. It considers topics including Palestinian seed-saving and food sovereignty initiatives, and the role of animals in imagining and creating Palestinian national futures. I also write on feminist and queer theory and politics, particularly for a public audience.