English and Creative Writing

Photo of Dr Christine Lehnen

Dr Christine Lehnen

Lecturer in Creative Writing

C.Lehnen@exeter.ac.uk

Overview

I research the historical novel, political writing, vulnerability in contemporary literature, and the representation of the past in the present. As a creative practitioner, I write political essays and literary fiction. In my practice as author-academic, I focus on how to combine politics and fiction, intervene through fiction in the crucial debates of our time, and illuminate the shape of the new literature engagee of the twenty-first century.

Both creatively and critically, I am interested in vulnerability and how the past is told in the present: Who do we remember? Who do we forget? How does an event become history, how does history become myth? And what violence do these myths do to us in the present? I am currently preparing three books on the subject: Envoys, a literary historical novel set in 1180 BCE, Remembering Women: Lessons from the First Millennium BCE, a narrative non-fiction for broader audiences, as well as a monograph on the current state of the literary historical novel entitled Grievable Bodies and Marginalised Histories: The Historical Novel after Postmodernism.

Remembering Women has just been acquired by Icon Books and will be released in 2025.

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Research

  • historical fiction
  • cultural and collective memory
  • representations of the past in the present
  • gender studies
  • political writing
  • prose fiction
  • the novel
  • the creative and political essay
  • fiction that matters
  • narrative non-fiction
  • literary realism after postmodernism
  • contemporary women's writing

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Supervision

I am looking forward to supervising work in any area of my research expertise, in particular on the contemporary historical novel, representations of past in the present, literary realism after postmodernism, vulnerability in literature, political writing, women's history, women's memory, contemporary women's writing, and 21st century literary fiction.

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External impact and engagement

I regularly deliver workshops at municipal libraries as part of a continued outreach effort in creative writing.

I regularly produce public-facing writing to engage a broader audience in our academic debates - and to make sure that our debates reflect the concerns of the society we live in. As a part of this, I have written essays for Aeon, Antigone, Psyche, New Lines Magazine and others, particularly on women's rights, women's history, and gender equality.



Contribution to discipline

I have been a board member of the international Historical Fictions Research Network since 2021. I am a member of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Historical Fictions and co-organiser of the annual, international Historical Fictions Research Conference.

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Teaching

Undergraduate teaching:
  • "Fiction Matters" (EAS3501)
  • "The Essay: Form and Content" (EAS1045)
  • "Imagine This: Prompts for Creative Writing" (EAS1004)
  • Creative Writing Dissertation Supervision (EAS122)

Postgraduate teaching:

  • "Structures of Realism" (EASM3133)
  • Creative Writing Dissertation Supervision (EASM023)

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Biography

Christine Lehnen  

Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences  University of Exeter

 

EDUCATION  

PhD Creative Writing | University of Manchester | December 2023  

MA English Literatures and Cultures | University of Bonn, Sorbonne Nouvelle (Paris III) | 1st | August 2018  

MA Political Sciences | University of Bonn, Sorbonne Nouvelle (Paris III) | 1st | March 2021  

BA English Studies and Political Sciences | University of Bonn | 1st | March 2015  

APPOINTMENTS 

Lecturer for Creative Writing | University of Exeter| January 2024- May 2024

Lecturer for Creative Writing | University of Bonn | October 2014- April 2023  

Director of the Novel Writing Workshop | University of Bonn | October 2014 – December 2021 

Board member | Historical Fictions Research Network | since March 2021 

Associate Lecturer in Creative Writing | University of Bochum | 2015 

Associate Lecturer in Creative Writing | University of Wuppertal | 2016 

Novelist | represented by Susanna Lea Associates, London | since September 2016 

Scriptwriter | ITV Studios Germany | from 2014

Journalist | Deutsche Welle, The Wire India, Research & Teaching and others | since 2012 

AWARDS 

LOVELYBOOKS READER AWARD (SHORTLIST)  

Das Lied der Nacht, novel, 2021  

LOVELYBOOKS READER AWARD (LONGLIST)  

Palace of Glass, novel, 2018  

1ST PRIZE, PRIZE QUESTION OF THE YOUNG ACADEMIES OF EUROPE  

Short story,“Zeus/Europa”, 2016  

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