Rachel Bryan

Dr Rachel Bryan is a Fellow, College Associate Lecturer, and Director of Studies in English at St John's College, University of Cambridge. A specialist in 19th-21st century British and American literature, her work bridges war studies, ethical criticism, and modernist aesthetics. She earned her BA, MPhil, and AHRC-funded PhD at Jesus College, Cambridge, with a visiting student stint at Harvard, followed by a postdoctoral fellowship at All Souls College, Oxford.

• Education: BA, MPhil, PhD (Cambridge), Visiting Student (Harvard)
• Awards: Fellow of the Higher Education Academy

Her research centers on literary responses to war and conflict, emphasizing how stylistic choices negotiate consolation and ethical accountability. Her 2025 monograph Twentieth-Century Literature and the Aftermath of War explores consolatory counterfactuals in post-war writings, while her current project Post-war Guilt and the Literary Imagination examines extra-legal guilt in post-1945 British literature. Collaborative work includes a critical edition of Henry James’s The Other House.

Recent publications span topics from Henry James’s narrative theory to Elizabeth Bowen’s post-war trauma, 19th-century pollution metaphors, and detective fiction’s wartime evolution. Her editorial role in Rediscovering Henry James highlights collaborative scholarship trends.

• Scientific Awards:
  • Fellow of the Higher Education Academy

Dr Bryan supervises graduate and undergraduate research on modern and contemporary literature, with a focus on war-related themes and Henry James’s influence. She actively contributes to critical discourse on 20th-century British-American literature and modernist ethics.