Holly James Johnston

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:

• Narcissus, The National Gallery (2024). This short film explores the queer artistic and literary legacies of the Narcissus myth.
• Into That World Inverted (2023). 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 (2022). This short film reimagines queer icon Saint Sebastian as a drag king.
• Orlando in Lockdown (2020). 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 (2020). A short film about drag, dandyism, and the artist Aubrey Beardsley, in conversation with curator and art historian Stephen Calloway.

Teaching:

• I am the Course Leader for the A Queer History of Art course at the V&A Academy.
• At Oxford, I have taught on Prelims 4 at Merton College and St. Peter's College.
• I previously taught at the Sotheby's Institute of Art.

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_