Danielle Sands

Danielle Sands is a Senior Lecturer in Comparative Literature and Culture at Royal Holloway, University of London, affiliated with the Department of Languages, Literatures and Cultures and the Centre for Continental Philosophy. She served as Director of Postgraduate Education (Research) for the School of Humanities (2019–2022), Deputy Director, and later Director of the Techne Doctoral Training Partnership. Her interdisciplinary research spans literary studies, philosophy, and critical theory, focusing on post-Kantian European philosophy, posthumanism, environmental ethics, and animal studies.

Education: BA (Hons) from Durham University, MSc from the University of Edinburgh, and PhD from the University of London.

Research interests include literary/critical theory, 20th/21st-century fiction, philosophy of religion, aesthetics, and environmental ethics. She has authored monographs like Animal Writing: Storytelling, Selfhood and the Limits of Empathy (2019) and edited volumes such as Philosophy and the Human Paradox (2020) and Bioethics and the Posthumanities (2022). Current projects include the AHRC-funded 'The Philosophical Life of Plants' and co-editing the 'Posthumanism in Practice' series with Bloomsbury.

Awards include the British Academy Rising Star Engagement Award (2018) and recognition for doctoral supervision excellence. Active in academic leadership, she has coordinated grants like the 'Posthumanities' British Academy project (2018–2019) and collaborates on initiatives like 'How Like a Leaf: Art, Nature and World' (2019–2020).

Affiliations include the Society for European Philosophy, British Comparative Literature Association, and the Association for the Study of Literature and Environment.