Kristen Sieranski is a PhD student studying modern and contemporary drama. Her research focuses on representations of ghosts on stage, particularly the ways writers use haunting as a mechanism to think about personal, community, or national traumas in the aftermath of colonization. Some of the key questions of her research include: How does a ghost on stage differ from a ghost on a page? How can writers use haunting to think about the unspeakable? If trauma resists narration, how can it be represented? What possibilities are made available by the presence of bodies in a room when staging a play? How do directorial choices surrounding the staging of haunting create meaning? What does it mean to represent a ghost with a living, breathing person? What role can drama play in processes of truth and reconciliation? How does the movement of plays through transnational networks of performance impact the function of plays in postcolonial contexts?
Kristen is a Center for Social Concern Graduate Justice Fellow, a member of the International Network for the Comparative Humanities, and a Kellogg Institute for International Study Doctoral Affiliate. She is pursuing a minor in Irish Studies.