Anna Chiari

Thesis title: Silent Trauma: The Case of Virginia Woolf and Marguerite Duras

Biography

Background

Anna Chiari is a PhD candidate in Comparative Literature. She holds a BA in English and French literatures and languages and a Joint Master's Degree in English and American Studies from Ca' Foscari University (Venice). Before moving to The University of Edinburgh, she specialized in Comparative Literature with an MA at UCL. 

Holding two MFAs in dramaturgy and screenwriting from IULM University (Milan) and Silvio D'Amico Academy of Dramatic Arts (Rome), she also works as a writer and a freelance journalist. 

Qualifications

  • MFA in Dramaturgy - Silvio D'Amico Academy of Dramatic Arts (2021)
  • MFA in The Art of Storytelling - IULM University (2021)
  • MA in Comparative Literature - UCL (2018)
  • Joint Master's Degree in English and American Studies - Ca' Foscari University (2017)
  • BA in Foreign Languages and Literatures - Ca' Foscari University (2014)

Research summary

  • Trauma Studies
  • Modernism
  • Psychoanalysis 
  • Intermediality
  • Life Writing: Autofiction, Autotheory, and Autobiography
  • Feminist Literature

Current research interests

Anna's doctoral research analyses and examines the role of silence and lacunae in representing traumatic memories, focusing on the works of Virginia Woolf and Marguerite Duras. Her analysis explores how the two female modernist writers reacted and responded to their own preoccupations with trauma and the difficulty of representing and speaking about it through literature. The study's guiding hypothesis is that trauma is not amnesic but is expressible in narratives where the shattering of the traumatic experiences takes the shape of blanks, silences, and pervasive absence.
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