Dr Meg Jensen
Faculties, departments and locations
- Kingston School of Art
- Department of Humanities
- School of Creative and Cultural Industries
- Penrhyn Road
Professor in English Literature and Creative Writing
- Email:
- [email protected]
About
My research focuses on representations of human rights violation and/or traumatic experience in narrative form, and the social, cultural, gendered and familial contexts in which such works are produced.
Recent applied projects, funded by the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the UNDP, assessed the effectiveness of Expressive Writing methodologies in supporting the wellbeing of women victims of sexual violence in conflict in Iraq and AHRC funded work with communities in crisis across Lebanon.
My most recent publications, including the monograph The Art and Science of Trauma and the Autobiographical: Negotiated Truths, Palgrave 2019, evaluate a range of life narrative forms that represent traumatic experience (memoir, testimony, poetry, graphic novels, monuments, autobiographical novels, etc) and consider the relationship between such works and current behavioural, psychological, and neurochemical approaches to diagnosing and treating traumatic disorders.
Finally, my practice-based research takes the form of creative non-fiction and autobiographical novels concerned with representations of traumatic experience.
Qualifications
- BA Liberal Arts, Sarah Lawrence College, New York (1985)
- MA English Literature (Distinction), New York University, 1991
- PhD English Literature Queen Mary, University of London, 1996
- Senior Fellow Higher Education Academy (SFHEA) 2017
Domains
Because my main area of research interest is reflecting on how stories of trauma and conflict are represented in texts of all kinds, I teach in a wide range of subject areas.
In Creative Writing at BA, MA, MFA and PhD levels, I work with students on the development of their own voice and specialise in autobiographical forms of writing.
In English Literature, I teach across several time periods from the late 18th Century to the present, in genres from fiction to non-fiction to poetry to graphic forms of writing, written by authors from all over the world: from 19th century British novels to post-colonial short stories, to modernist poetry and prose and beyond.
I am particularly interested in writing that challenges dominant narratives – stories and poems and non-fiction that speaks from the "outsider's" point of view.
Courses taught
I publish widely on the relationship between memory, trauma, the autobiographical and the advancement of human rights and conduct funded interdisciplinary applied research on the uses of Expressive Writing for supporting well-being in survivors of traumatic experiences.
Funded projects include:
- Expressive Life Writing and Telling During Crisis: Addressing Urgent Needs in the Akkar Governate, Lebanon
December 2020: AHRC Research Grant £25,000 as Co-I
The primary research question of this project is: "How can Expressive Life Writing be deployed during an acute crisis to support well-being for social workers and their most vulnerable clients especially women and girls?" The secondary research questions of this project are: "What are the most effective means of reaching vulnerable subjects isolated by crisis situations with ELW -online, with an App, by phone?" and "How can ELW be taken to scale as part of a well-being centred response to building resilience in the face of a crisis?" If the research provides satisfactory answers to these questions, then this project will produce a universally available, stress tested, step change in the use of ELW as a form of rapidly deployable assistance for the trauma, stress and pressure of quickly evolving crisis situations. - Expressive Writing: support for Front Line Health Care Workers during and after the COVID-19 Outbreak
April 2020: awarded £10,000 by Viaro Energy, Ltd. to research, develop and deliver support to Front Line Health Care Workers during the COVID-19 outbreak. The research project will also test the efficacy of an innovative multilingual, freely accessible digital model for the successful dissemination of Expressive Writing training and exercises, gathering feedback via online surveys. - AHRC Global Research Funding £21,000 in 2018 and £26,000 in 2019
Expressive Writing Capacity Building with Akkar Network for Development (AND), Beirut - United Nations Development Programme SIRI project, Iraq, £1,500 in 2017. Expressive Writing Capacity Building
- Dear Diary Exhibition: Somerset House June 2017 Produced and exhibited filmed refugee diaries
- UK Cabinet Office Countering Violent Extremism Programme, £7,400 in 2017
- UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office Human Rights Fund, Stigma Project: £2,400 in 2016 http://www.inmaairaq.com/drejae.aspx?=hewal&jmare=86&Jor=1
Publications
The precision mentorship programme for inclusive researcher development: a critical reflection
Morrow, Elizabeth and Jensen, Margaret, 2025, Exchanges: The Interdisciplinary Research Journal (12), 3pp 149-162, Published
Writing, reading and teaching the (fr)agile/fragmented self: mapping life writing's intimate geographies
Jensen, Meg, 2025, New Writing : The International Journal for the Practice and Theory of Creative Writing (22), 3pp 301-314, Published
Book Review of 'New forms of self-narration: young women, life writing and human rights' by Ana Belén Martínez García
Jensen, Meg, 2024, Biography: An Interdisciplinary Quarterly (46), 2pp 408-412, Published
Expressive writing and telling and participatory action research: developing a relational ethics of practice for story-based interventions in crisis settings
Campbell, Siobhan and Jensen, Meg, 2024, Journal of Poetry Therapy, Accepted/In press
Book Review of: 'Women writers of the Beat era : autobiography and intertextuality' by Mary Paniccia Carden
Jensen, Meg, 2020, Life Writing (17), 4pp 609-611, Published
Book Review of: 'Speaking pictures : neuropsychoanalysis and authorship in film and literature' by Alistair Fox
Jensen, Meg, 2017, Viewfinder (106)pp 23-23, Published
Surviving the wreck: post-traumatic writers, bodies in transition and the point of autobiographical fiction
Jensen, Meg, 2016, Life Writing (13), 4pp 431-448, Published
Education should be a right for all
Dixon, Paul, Favretto, Ilaria, Finn, Peter, Smart, Jackie, Spencer, Philip, Stockhammer, Engelbert, Stuart, John, Suess, Eleanor, Giaxoglou, Korina, Goldsmith, Carlie, Hallward, Peter, Hawkins, Sue, Swift, Allan, Upstone, Sara, Vallee-Tourangeau, Frederic, Wells, Julian, Wilson, Scott, Haywood, Peter, Higginbottom, Andrew, Ichijo, Atsuko, Isaac, Marina, Jensen, Meg, Kayyali, Reem, Kettyle, Ann, Lambrou, Marina, Latimer, Amanda, Linton, Marisa, Lipsedge, Karen, Malabou, Catherine, O Maoilearca, John, McQuillan, Martin, Micklethwaite, Paul, Morgan Wortham, Simon, O'Brien, Catherine, Blackburn, Robert, Botting, Fred, Brady, Mary, Osborne, Peter, Pinnock, Winsome, Piper, Jason, Choat, Simon, Chu, Jonathan, Cinpoes, Radu, Coultas, Valerie, Dines, Martin, Caygill, Howard, Chadwick, Howard, Chanter, Tina, Roberts, Mike, Rogers, David, Sandford, Stella, Searby, Michael, Siddiki, Jalal Uddin, Ponto, Maria, Raphael, Sam, Reid, Trish, Agnew, Eadaoin, Alliez, Eric and Auerbach, Paul, 2014, The Guardian, Published
Post-traumatic memory projects: autobiographical fiction and counter-monuments
Jensen, Meg, 2014, Textual Practice (28), 4pp 701-725, Published
Something beautiful for Mary
Jensen, Meg, 2012, Journal of Wood Science (9), 3pp 337-341, Published
The writer's diary as borderland: the public and private selves of Virginia Woolf, Katherine Mansfield, and Louisa May Alcott
Jensen, Meg, 2012, Life Writing (9), 3pp 315-325, Published
Getting to know me in theory and practice: negotiated truth and mourning in autobiographically-based fiction (J.G. Ballard, Virginia Woolf, Katherine Mansfield, Jack Kerouac, Louisa May Alcott and me)
Jensen, Meg, 2011, Literature Compass (8), 12pp 941-950, Published
Introduction: life writing and critical practice
Jensen, Meg and Jolly, Margaretta, 2011, Literature Compass (8), 12pp 875-877, Published
Separated by a common language: the (differing) discourses of life writing in theory and practice
Jensen, Meg, 2009, a/b: Auto/Biography Studies (24), 2pp 299-314, Published
Book Review of: The unbearable Saki: the work of H. H. Munro by Sandie Byrne
Jensen, Meg, 2009, Modern Language Review (104), 1pp 192-193, Published
Book Review of: Original copy: plagiarism and originality in nineteenth-century literature by Robert MacFarlane
Jensen, Meg, 2008, Modern Language Review (103), 3pp 839-840, Published
Book Review of: Quixotic fictions of the USA 1792-1815 by Sarah F. Wood
Jensen, Margaret, 2007, Modern Language Review (MLR) (102), 3pp 842-842, Published
The anxiety of daughterhood: re-examining Bloom's theory of influence in the work of Louisa May Alcott and Virginia Woolf
Jensen, Meg, 2007, Literature Compass (4), 4pp 1208-1226, Published
Grief work as autotheory: sisterhood, suicide and art
Jensen, Meg (2026). Cham, Switzerland: [Published]
Prelude & other stories
Mansfield, Katherine (2021). London, U.K.: [Published]
The art and science of trauma and the autobiographical: negotiated truths
Jensen, Margaret (2019). Basingstoke, U.K.: (Palgrave Macmillan) [Published]
The expressive life writing handbook
Jensen, Meg and Campbell, Siobhan (2016). Edinburgh, U.K.: [Published]
The open book: creative misreadings in the works of selected modern authors
Jensen, Margaret M. (2002). New York; Basingstoke: [Published]
Introduction
Jensen, Meg (2021). In: Jensen, Meg, (eds.), London, U.K.:pp vii-xvi [Published]
Speaking trauma and history: the collective voice of testimonial literature
Jensen, Meg (2020). In: Hammond, Andrew, (eds.), Cham. Switzerland:pp 323-343 [Published]
Negotiated truths and iterative practice in action: the Women in Conflict expressive life writing project
Jensen, Margaret and Campbell, Siobhan (2019). In: Douglas, Kate, Barnwell, Ashley, (eds.), New York, NY: Routledgepp 149-160 [Published]
How art constitutes the human: aesthetics, empathy, and the interesting in autofiction
Jensen, Meg (2018). In: Dix, Hywel, (eds.), London, U.K.: Palgrave Macmillanpp 65-83 [Published]
The legible face of human rights in autobiographically based fiction
Jensen, Meg (2016). In: McClennen, Sophia A., Schultheis Moore, Alexandra, (eds.), Abingdon, U.K.: Routledgepp 184-192 [Published]
The fictional is political: forms of appeal in autobiographical fiction and poetry
Jensen, Meg (2014). In: Jensen, Meg, Jolly, Margaretta, (eds.), Madison, WI, U.S.:pp 141-157 [Published]
Using life narrative to explore human rights themes in the classroom
Brivati, Brian, Jensen, Meg, Jolly, margaretta and Moore, Alexandra Schultheis (2014). In: Jensen, Meg, Jolly, Margaretta, (eds.), Madison, WI, U.S.:pp 267-280 [Published]
Introduction: do you speak life narrative?
Jensen, Meg (2009). In: Jensen, Meg, Jordan, Jane, (eds.), Newcastle upon Tyne, U.K.:pp xxvii-xxxiii [Published]
State of the art: the spirit of the age collection
Jensen, Meg and Jordan, Jane (2009). In: Jensen, Meg, Jordan, Jane, (eds.), Newcastle upon Tyne, U.K.:pp xxxiv-xxxvii [Published]
Tradition and revelation: moments of being in Virginia Woolf's major novels
Jensen, Meg (2007). In: Shiach, Morag, (eds.), Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Presspp 112-125 [Published]
Roper, Esther Gertrude (1868-1938)
Jensen, Meg (2004). In: Goldman, Lawrence, (eds.), Oxford, UK: [Published]
Stephen, Caroline Emelia [Milly] (1834-1909)
Jensen, Meg (2004). In: Goldman, Lawrence, (eds.), Oxford, UK: [Published]
Writers' diaries and their fiction
Jensen, Meg(2010). [Published]
Behind a mask: the unknown thrillers of Louisa May Alcott
Jensen, Meg(2009). [Published]
Videos of my work
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Hauntology Poem for Writers Kingston November 2020
Note Pinned to the Saddle of a Wandering Mare
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Writers Kingston Nordic Poetry Festival November 2019
Nordic Pizza by Meg Jensen
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Interview Rachel Cusk on Outline, Beyond Borders Festival
Rachel Cusk Outline
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Introduction to Katherine Mansfield
Professor Meg Jensen introduces Mansfield's short stories
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Writers Centre Kingston Event on Forgetting Jan 2018
Forgetting
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Life Writing Course
Openings
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Introduction to Life Writing
Welcome to my Life Writing course with Meg Jensen
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Hauntology: History, Culture, Trauma