Will Kirby

I am a PhD student at Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge. My research focuses on queerness and nationhood in contemporary Catalan cultures, and I am supervised by Dr Isaias Fanlo. My project explores the mainstream adoption of an ever greater number of queer Catalan texts and other cultural works into the Catalan national canon. In doing so, I illustrate how a centring of queer subjectivities disrupts normative epistemologies on sex and sexuality that underlie discourses on nationalism.

I have been awarded a Collaborative Doctoral Award to carry out my research. My studentship is co-funded by the Institut Ramon Llull, the public institution responsible for promoting Catalan language and culture internationally.

Before starting the PhD, I studied for an MPhil in European, Latin American and Comparative Literatures and Cultures and a BA in Arabic and Spanish, both at the University of Cambridge. During a break from my studies, I worked in different roles in secondary education, communications, and marketing.