Vulnerability: A Research Method for Literary and Cultural Studies

这一独特的跨学科项目开发了一种新的阅读方式，可以应用于文学和文化研究。该项目完善了脆弱性理论，这是科学和社会科学中的一个多学科研究领域，以提供一种在文学和文化研究中将脆弱性概念作为一种阅读方法的方法。该项目的重点是失踪和被谋杀的黑人和土著人民，以及在美国边境对妇女和儿童的待遇，这是北美正在发生的两个相互关联的跨界脆弱性危机，尚未得到持续的关键关注。该项目确定并绘制了一组新兴的文化反应，这些反应明确地与这些相互关联的脆弱性危机相联系。在开发一种“阅读脆弱性”的方法时，该项目将以该研究员的一部大型学术专著为最终成果，该专著借鉴了美国、英国和墨西哥的广泛档案研究。这本专著将通过研究小说、诗歌、电影和行为艺术在过去三十年里如何应对这些危机，以跨境的方式分析美国-墨西哥和加拿大-美国边境与表面上的“国家”危机--无人陪伴和失散的儿童前往美国旅行(第一部分)；失踪和被谋杀的黑人和土著人民(第二部分)；以及美墨边境的女性杀戮(第三部分)--的重要性。该项目的相关开发活动将把这项研究部署到三个受益者群体：1.研究任何脆弱领域的学者；2.在北美开展性别和种族脆弱性工作的非政府组织；3.公众，特别是中学教师。1.学者：该研究员将创建和领导一个多学科和跨学科的脆弱性研究网络，该网络将在项目第二年举行虚拟会议，汇集来自不同研究领域和包括不同国家背景的学者、研究人员和实践者，就如何在不同学科中调动脆弱性概念展开协作讨论。该网络将举办三次活动：一次是关于本项目审查的两次脆弱性危机，另一次是关于网络将决定的一个专题。脆弱性研究网络的成员将合作提议和出版一本编辑过的文集《脆弱性研究中的关键词》，该研究员将担任该文集的编辑。非政府组织：在发展活动中，研究员将通过为美国、加拿大和墨西哥的非政府组织创建一个免费提供的在线政策工具包，重点关注这两个跨境脆弱性，并提出政策选择和战略，从而培养政策参与方面的技能。这份材料还将被翻译成西班牙语。教师和公众：为了使公众从该项目中受益，该研究员将为中学教师制作一个可下载的土著文学和黑人文学教学资源，以及一个以“黑人生活也是文学”为主题的免费在线短模块(MOOC)，这是英国第一个关于这一主题的MOOC。

This unique interdisciplinary project develops a new way of reading that can be applied to literary and cultural studies. The project refines vulnerability theory, a multidisciplinary field of study in the sciences and social sciences, to offer a way of using the concept of vulnerability as a reading method in literary and cultural studies. The project focuses on missing and murdered Black and Indigenous People, and the treatment of women and children at American borders, two ongoing and linked cross-border crises of vulnerability in North America that have not been examined together with sustained critical attention. The project identifies and maps an emerging body of cultural responses that explicitly engage with these interconnected crises of vulnerability.In developing a way of 'reading for vulnerability', the project will culminate in a major scholarly monograph by the Fellow that draws on extensive archival research in the US, UK, and Mexico. The monograph will take a cross-border approach to analysing the significance of the U.S.-Mexico and Canada-U.S. borders in relation to seemingly 'national' crises - unaccompanied and separated children travelling to the United States (Part 1); Missing and Murdered Black and Indigenous People (Part 2); and femicide at the U.S.-Mexico border (Part 3) - by studying how fiction, poetry, film, and performance art have responded to these crises in the last three decades.The project's associated development activities will deploy this research to three groups of beneficiaries: 1. academics working on any area of vulnerability; 2. NGOs working on gender and race-based vulnerability in North America; 3. the public, in particular secondary school teachers. 1. Academics: The Fellow will create and lead a multi- and interdisciplinary Vulnerability Studies Network, which will meet virtually during Year 2 of the project, bringing together scholars, researchers, and practitioners from different fields of study and including different national contexts to stage collaborative discussions about the ways in which the concept of vulnerability is mobilised in different disciplines. The Network will hold three events: one each on the two crises of vulnerability examined in this project, and one on a topic to be decided by the Network. Members of the Vulnerability Studies Network will collaborate in the proposal and publication of an edited collection, Keywords in Vulnerability Studies, of which the Fellow will be an editor.2. NGOs: The development activities will see the Fellow develop skills in policy engagement through the creation of a freely available online policy toolkit for NGOs in the United States, Canada, and Mexico, focusing on the two cross-border vulnerabilities and proposing policy options and strategies. This material will also be translated into Spanish.3. Teachers, and the Public: In order that the public benefits from the project, the Fellow will produce a downloadable teaching resources on Indigenous literature and Black literature for secondary school teachers, as well as a free short online module (MOOC) on the topic of "Black Lives Matter Literature", the first MOOC on this topic in the UK.