Sarah Kennedy

Dr. Sarah Kennedy is the RJ Owens Fellow in English and College Associate Professor at Downing College, University of Cambridge. She holds a BA (Hons.) and LLB (Hons.) from the University of Melbourne, and a PhD from the University of Cambridge funded by the Rae and Edith Bennett Travelling Scholarship. She previously served as a Junior Research Fellow at Downing College (2013–2017) and Visiting Fellow at Pomona College (2017).

Her research explores twentieth-century Anglophone poetry, modernism, metaphor, ecopoetics, postcolonial Pacific literatures, and intersections between literature, film, and visual art. She examines creative inheritance, literary afterlives, and ethical dimensions of attention in cultural production.

Kennedy's publications demonstrate sustained engagement with modernist poets (T.S. Eliot, Wallace Stevens), contemporary voices (Alice Oswald), and cross-disciplinary themes like environmental imagination, trauma, and artistic influence. Her scholarship frequently bridges literary analysis with art history and film studies.

Awards:

• Rae and Edith Bennett Travelling Scholarship
• John Serio Award (2019) for best essay on Wallace Stevens
• Finalist, CUSU Student-Led Teaching Awards (2020)

She teaches Practical Criticism, Critical Practice, and modern literature at undergraduate levels, supervises dissertations, and contributes to the MPhil in Multi-disciplinary Gender Studies. As Deputy Director of Admissions and Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, she plays key roles in academic administration and pedagogical development.