Dr Kirsten Harris
PGCHE, PhD, MA, BA
Expertise
Interdisciplinary liberal educator, with significant leadership experience. Inclusion; transition to HE; undergraduate research; inquiry-based pedagogies. Research expertise in utopian studies, C19 socialism and Walt Whitman.
Current positions
Lecturer
Department of English
Contact
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Biography
At Warwick, as Deputy Head of School for Cross-Faculty Studies and Director of Undergraduate Studies (Liberal Arts), I had responsibility for strategic decisions at programme level relating to curriculum, course management and recruitment. I led a major admissions and curriculum review leading to a significant restructuring of the programme and increased student numbers. As Director of Teaching at Bristol, I continue to be responsible for the day-to-day management of Liberal Arts provision. This includes student-facing activities, such as communications, social events and academic skills training, as well as quality assurance and programme evaluation and development. My practice is centred on community-building and nurturing a sense of belonging for undergraduate engagement and success.
Prior to these leadership roles, my principle achievements at Warwick were as School for Cross-Faculty Studies equities lead, with additional responsibility for Widening Participation. I built a programme of well-received access interventions, including those delivered by undergraduate students that I trained and mentored. Adopting a student lifecycle approach, I designed and delivered staff training to improve the inclusivity of the education experience for all students, and worked with current students to improve transition support for incoming students. I led the School’s successful 2021 Athena SWAN bronze submission, the first award in the Faculty of Arts.
Research interests
My current long-view interdisciplinary research focuses on utopian texts, thought and practice across different time periods. I am interested in the problems humans navigate when trying to design and manifest better societies, worldbuilding as a collective endeavour, and the extent to which utopian creative expression might function as a tool of radical hope. I am managing editor of the leading journal in the field, Utopian Studies.
My first monograph, Walt Whitman and British Socialism: 'The Love of Comrades' was published by Routledge in 2016. It explores the ways that the American poet was interpreted, appropriated and put to use by British socialists at the turn of the century, despite his outright refusal to endorse a socialist political programme. Reviewers have described the book as an “important contribution to transnational Whitman studies” (Walt Whitman Quarterly Review) and “henceforth, [the likely] point of departure for scholars interested in the Whitman/British socialist nexus” (Victorian Studies). I serve as an editorial board member for the Walt Whitman Quarterly Review.
My final major concern is socialist print culture in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, particularly in the poetry of the so-called “socialist revival”. I'm interested in debates in the socialist press about poetic voice, form, aesthetic and canon, and how these discussions were integrated in nuanced ways into debates about the nature and purpose of socialism itself. Poet and activist Edward Carpenter is a special interest.
I lead creative community workshops, participate in engagement events, and give public talks on topics relating to Walt Whitman, Edward Carpenter, utopias and the relationship between art and activism. I'm very open to discussing possible collaborations with community groups and external organisations.
Publications
Selected publications
01/02/2016Walt Whitman and British Socialism
Walt Whitman and British Socialism
Mark A. Allison. Imagining Socialism: Aesthetics, Anti-politics, and Literature in Britain, 1817–1918 (review)
Journal of British Studies
No unsavoury connotations
TLS: The Times Literary Supplement
Recent publications
01/01/2023Mark A. Allison. Imagining Socialism: Aesthetics, Anti-politics, and Literature in Britain, 1817–1918 (review)
Journal of British Studies
Betsy Erkkila, The Whitman Revolution: Sex, Poetry, and Politics (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2020), 273 pp.
American Literary History
No unsavoury connotations
TLS: The Times Literary Supplement
Poetry and Fin de Siècle Socialism
Literature Compass
Walt Whitman and British Socialism
Walt Whitman and British Socialism
Teaching
Academic inquiry begins by asking questions, and responds to, and stimulates, curiosity in the world through intellectual exploration. My specialism in undergraduate research includes designing core Y1 units at two institutions (at Bristol, The Art of Inquiry), and co-designing a masters-level unit in interdisciplinary mixed methods (including those in the arts and humanities). I create opportunities to celebrate undergraduate research; e.g. in May 2025 I led a student committee to host a Liberal Arts undergraduate symposium, ‘Alternative Futures, Possible Presents: Interdisciplinary Research and Reflection’. This was attended by 70+ students from across the UK, Ireland and Europe, who shared their work in a variety of formats, from academic presentations to creative workshops.
I share my practice in internal and external education forums; e.g. in presentations and facilitated workshops at national Interdisciplinary Teaching and Learning conferences. A chapter on practises developed through my research-led teaching, “Navigating Utopia: Module Design for Critical Citizenship,” is forthcoming in Interdisciplinary Learning and Teaching: Practice and Pedagogies (Oct 2025).