Holly James Johnston

Holly James Johnston
DPhil Candidate
University College

Thesis title: ‘Why am I as I am—and what am I?’: Queer Coming-Of-Age Narratives in the Early Twentieth-Century    

Supervisor: Professor Michael Whitworth

 

Doctoral Research:

My research focuses on queer coming-of-age stories in the early twentieth-century, studying Vita Sackville-West, Christopher St. John, Radclyffe Hall, and Virginia Woolf. With a particular interest in why queer writers turned to this genre, my research explores how the coming-of-age story became a repository for questions about what it meant to be queer.

 

Other Projects:

  • Into That World Inverted. In this podcast series, two friends set off on a road trip of the South East of England to unearth and explore its queer histories.
  • Recreating Saint Sebastian, The National Gallery. This short film reimagines queer icon Saint Sebastian as a drag king.
  • Orlando in Lockdown. This photo series imagines how the eponymous hero/heroine of Virginia Woolf’s Orlando (1928) would have spent lockdown.
  • The Art of Being a Dandy, Tate. A short film about drag, dandyism, and the artist Aubrey Beardsley, in conversation with curator and art historian Stephen Calloway.

 

Research Interests:

Modernist Literature and Culture; Queer History; Queer Art History; Decadence and Aestheticism; Victorian Studies; Queer Theory; History of Sexuality; Genre; Narrative Form.

 

Education:

  • MSt in English (1900 – Present), University of Oxford (Distinction)
  • BA in English, University College London (First Class Honours)

 

More examples of my work can be found on Instagram @orlandrag_