K.S. (Kathryn) Roberts, Dr

Academic Employment

University of Groningen        
Senior Lecturer, Program in American Studies, 2021-
Assistant Professor, Program in American Studies, 2018-2021

Harvard University                
Lecturer, Department of English, 2017
Head Teaching Fellow, Arts & Humanities, 2016-2017

Education

Harvard University                 
Ph.D., English, 2016
M.A., English, 2011

Duke University                      
B.A., English, Summa cum laude, 2007

Recent Grants, Fellowships, and Awards

• Constructive Advanced Thinking Grant, NETIAS, 2023-2025
• American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) Fellow, 2019-2020

Recent Talks and Publications

“Where was Contemporary Literature? Utopia and Precarity in the Residency Novel,” invited talk at What was Contemporary Literature? Heidelberg Center for American Studies (HCA), September 26-28, 2024.

Veronica Gorii and Kathryn Roberts: “Studying Creative Work(s) from the Artist Residency," lecture at NICA Summer School Creative Work(s): Cultural Production Studies Across the Disciplines, University of Groningen, July 1-4, 2024.

Kathryn Roberts and Sara Strandvad, “Institutionalize yourself! Artist residencies and the pitfalls of self-organizing,” invited talk for theme group Public Art and the New Common: Integrating perspectives on actors, institutions and structures forming public space, Pufendorf Institute for Advanced Studies, Lund, Sweden, (online) May 2023.

Roberts, K. & Strandvad, S., "Creative Ecologies: Proposing a New Framework for 21st-Century Cultural Production from the Case of Artist Residencies," in The Cultural Sociology of Art and Music, edited by Lisa McCormick. Palgrave, 2022.

“The McGurl Era? American Culture, Peak College, and The Program Era,” in Culture²: Theorizing Theory for the Twenty-First Century, Vol. 1, edited by Frank Kelleter and Alexander Starre, Transcript, 2022. https://www.transcript-publishing.com/978-3-8376-5787-6/culture-2/?number=978-3-8394-5787-0

“Our Town, the MacDowell Colony, and the Art of Civic Mediation.” American Literary History, vol. 31, no. 3, 2019, pp. 395–418. 

“Outside Joke: Humorlessness and Masculinity in Richard Wright,” in The Cambridge Companion to Richard Wright, edited by Glenda R. Carpio. Cambridge University Press, 2019.