Staff Profile
Dr Liesl King
Senior Lecturer, English Literature
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PhD in English Literature, Queen Mary, University of London. MA in Literature Studies; Certificate in Teaching Composition and Literature, San Francisco State University. BA Honours, with Special Distinction in the Major, in English Literature, University of California, Santa Barbara.
I am a Senior Lecturer in English Literature who regularly directs the module Science Fiction for Survival and who teaches on the MA module Speculative Bodies. I supervise a number of PhD students on projects relating to feminist literature and speculative science fiction. I run the York Centre for Writing's online science fiction magazine which I co-edit with Professor Rob Edgar: Terra Two: An Ark for Off-World Survival.
I am particularly interested in science fiction. My PhD in English from the University of London, Queen Mary focuses on the representations of gender and progressive spirituality in women’s science fiction and fantasy in the late twentieth century. I am currently focused on exploring the way speculative science fiction invites readers and viewers to access what Minna Salami has entitled 'sensuous knowledge' (Salami, 2020). I am hugely indebted to speculative science fiction and fantasy writer Ursula K. Le Guin, whose stories and essays have influenced me and my way of life since I first encountered her work in my early twenties.
- School – School of Humanities
- Email – l.king@yorksj.ac.uk
- Phone – 01904 876 945
- Research - View my work in RaY
Publications
King, Liesl and Abi Curtis, Speculative Fiction, A New Critical Idiom. Routledge, London (forthcoming 2024).
Garlick, Ben and King, Liesl (2022) A geography beyond the Anthropocene: Ursula Le Guin’s Always Coming Home as topophilia for survival. Cultural geographies.
King, Liesl, Russ Hepworth-Sawyer, Jay Hodgson, Mark Marrington (eds), Gender in Music Production. Routledge, London (2020).
King, Liesl, ‘Making Music in a Masculine Industry: An Interview with singer/songwriter/sound editor Aynee Jou-Jon Roche.’ Gender in Music Production. Routledge, London (2020).
King, Liesl, 'Woman to Woman, Sister to Sister - Feminine Connections in Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni'. Feminism and Diaspora: Critical Perspectives on Chitra Divakaruni. Lexington Books, USA. (2022).
King, Liesl (2017) ‘On Secular Spirituality in the Duffer Brother’s Stranger Things, Series 1’. Rupathaka Journal on Interdisciplinary Studies in Humanities', 9 (3).
King, Liesl (2018) Terra Two: An Ark for Off-World Survival—A York St John University Project on Sustainability, Spirituality and Science Fiction. In: Leal Filho, Walter and Consorte-McCrea, Adriana, (eds.) Sustainability and the Humanities. Springer, Cham, pp. 189-203.
Conferences
‘Speculative Fiction and Women’s Writing’, presented at ‘When it Changed: Women in SF/F since 1972’, December 2023
‘The Awe of Them Came On Me’: Ursula K. Le Guin and the Power of Trees’, presented at ‘Art and the Anthropocene’, York University, March 2021.
‘Thinking beyond the Anthropocene: Excavating potential futures/future potentials in Ursula K. Le Guin’s Always Coming Home’ for ‘Earth and its Others: Geographies of SF’, University of Fribourg, August 2020.
‘Moving Slowly with Le Guin: A Philosophy for Survival’, presented at the School of Humanities, Religion and Philosophy Research Day July 2019.
‘Moving Slowly with Le Guin: A Philosophy for Survival’, presented at ‘The Legacies of Ursula K. Le Guin: Science, Fiction and Ethics for the Anthropocene’, Institut du Monde Anglophone, Paris, June 2019.
‘On Otaks and Equilibrium’, an invited paper to celebrate the anniversary of Ursula K. Le Guin’s A Wizard of Earthsea for Cardiff Book Talk, Cardiff University, November 2018.
‘Terra Two: An Ark for Off-World Survival—A York St John University project on sustainability, spirituality, and science fiction’ presented at the symposium for Sustainability and Humanities: linking social values, theology and spirituality towards sustainability at Canterbury Christ Church University, November 2017
‘Stranger Things? Religious Symbols in Apocalyptic SF Narratives’ presented at the Speculative Futures Conference at YSJU, May 2017
‘Stranger Things? Religious Symbols in Apocalyptic SF Narratives’, presented at the Popular Culture Association’s conference in San Diego, April 2017
‘Terra Two: Let’s Get it Right this Time OR My Plan to Save our Species’, presented at York St John’s Research Reflections conference, York, September 2016
‘Soul-sick in the Sprawl: Corruption in the Big City Spaces of Piercy, Mieville and Atwood’, presented at York St John’s Cityscapes: Media Textualities and Urban Visions conference, York, April 2016
‘Reflections on the Yin-Centered Spirituality of Ursula K. Le Guin’, presented at the Pacific Ancient and Modern Language Association, Portland, Oregon November 2015
‘Reflections of the Yin-Centered Spirituality of Ursula K. Le Guin’, presented for ‘Research Snapshots’, York St John University October 2015
‘Something Bigger than Ourselves’, presented for the York St John series ‘Narrative and Alternative Futures’, York Theatre Royal, York March 2014
'Writing in the Mother Tongue - the yin-centred feminism of Ursula Le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness' – invited paper for the Cambridge University Centre for Gender Studies February 2013
‘The Return of the Embodied Voice?: Inspired by French Feminism’ – presented at the Annual Conference of The Society for European Philosophy and The Forum for European Philosophy, York St John University, August 2011
‘Mystical Liaisons, Spiritual Pleasures’ – presented for the RADAR series, York St John University, May 2009
‘Embedding Creative Assessment’ – presented at the York St John University Annual Teaching and Learning Conference, January 2009
‘Cross-Arts Assessment and the Virtual Gallery: Extending the Creative Project’ (with Dr Keith McDonald) – presented at the conference ‘Beyond the Essay: Assessment Issues in English Studies’ at Northumbria University in partnership with the English Subject Centre, Higher Education Authority, December 2008
‘Inspiring Critical Connections’ – presented at the Faculty of Arts Learning and Teaching Day, York St John University in partnership with the Yorkshire Sculpture Park, September 2007
‘Introducing the Female as Human’ – presented at the Faculty of Arts Research Series, York St John University, 2005
‘A Journey on Coyote’s Tail: Spiritual Vision in Gail Anderson Dargatz’s A Cure for Death by Lightning’ - presented at the BACS conference, University of York, April 2000
‘Is there a god in our future?: Alternative Faces of Divinity in Late Century Women’s SF/Fantasy fiction’ - presented at the Millennium conference, University of Liverpool, September 1999
Teaching
I teach Science Fiction for Survival, Literature at Work, and the MA module Speculative Bodies.
Research
My publications include ‘A geography beyond the Anthropocene: Ursula Le Guin’s Always Coming Home as topophilia for survival’ (Garlick, Ben and Liesl King, Sage, 2022), ‘Woman to Woman, Sister to Sister – Feminine Connections in Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’ (Critical Perspectives on Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, Lexington Books, 2022), ‘Terra Two: An Ark for Off-World Survival—A York St John Project on Sustainability, Spirituality, and Science Fiction’ (Sustainability in the Humanities, Springer 2018), and ‘On Secular Spirituality in the Duffer Brothers’ Stranger Things, Series 1 (Rupkatha Journal, 2017). I am co-editor of Gender in Music Production with R. Hepworth-Sawyer, J. Hodgson and M. Marrington (Routledge, 2020), and founder/caretaker of the York Centre for Writing’s online science fiction magazine Terra Two: An Ark for Off-World Survival.
