Liesl King

Dr. Liesl King is an Associate Professor of Literature at York St John University, affiliated with the School of Humanities. She specializes in science fiction, gender studies, and spirituality in literature. Her research explores speculative fiction's role in fostering 'sensuous knowledge' and interrogating progressive spirituality, heavily influenced by Ursula K. Le Guin's work. King co-edits the university's online science fiction magazine Terra Two, focusing on sustainability and off-world survival narratives. She teaches modules like Science Fiction for Survival and supervises PhD students in feminist literature and speculative science fiction.

Education: PhD in English Literature (Queen Mary, University of London), MA in Literature Studies (San Francisco State University), BA in English Literature (University of California, Santa Barbara).

Key research interests include feminist speculative fiction, ecocritical analyses of science fiction, and interdisciplinary projects at the intersection of art, ethics, and environmental sustainability. Her work often bridges literary analysis with practical sustainability initiatives, as seen in Terra Two, a collaborative project addressing survival through off-world colonization narratives.

Publications include co-editing Gender in Music Production (2020) and forthcoming Speculative Fiction: A New Critical Idiom (Routledge, 2024). She has presented at conferences on Le Guin’s legacy, speculative geographies beyond the Anthropocene, and feminist connections in diaspora literature.