Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities
United Kingdom
fellow
Elizabeth Sarah Coles
2025-2026
2026-2027
Home institution
University of Cambridge
Country of origin (home institution)
United Kingdom
Discipline(s)
Arts and arts studies; Humanities; Interdisciplinary Studies; Literature; Others
Theme(s)
Cultural Studies; Other; Performing arts
Fellowship dates
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Biography
Elizabeth Sarah Coles is a contemporary literature scholar and a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellow at CRASSH, University of Cambridge.
She is the author of Anne Carson: The Glass Essayist (Oxford University Press, 2023), which won the Poetry Foundation’s Pegasus Award for Poetry Criticism in 2024. Other honours include a Gradiva Award for her co-edited book, Wild Analysis (Routledge, 2022), the Wood-Whistler Medal and Scholarship and the Tom Henn Prize for English (both University of Cambridge).
Research Project
Contemporary poetry and poetry criticism
Elizabeth works at the intersection between contemporary poetry and poetry criticism. She is especially interested in the role of explanation and the explanatory in poems, and the role of prosody and performativity in criticism. Her current project explores how contemporary poets engage in public intellectuality, and what their public thinking and speaking can achieve in the context of the public humanities.
Elizabeth’s research is multilingual and has a strong performance profile. During a previous fellowship at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona, she directed a public program of lecture-performances in collaboration with the Barcelona Biennial of Thought and the Catalan-language Classics Festival.
Research Interests:
Contemporary poetry; Poetry criticism; Public intellectuality; Public humanities