Successful LADA applicant and postgraduate researcher, Sietse Hagen, discusses his research with us and how the award supports his current project and future goals.
During my Bachelor’s degree at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands, where I am originally from, I was introduced to postcolonialism. For my minor, I studied at Newcastle University for a year through the Harting Scholarship scheme. There, I was introduced to children’s literature studies and decided to apply postcolonial theory. During my Research Master’s degree, I decided to look at horror in this context as I love reading horror literature. This often connected to various forms of trauma, and thus my niche was created.
My current project is on how horror is used in Indian children’s literature to represent trauma, in both a diasporic and non-diasporic context. I hope to organise an event at the University of Liverpool that gets people thinking about these topics, and which would take the shape of a small conference or a series of research seminars connecting the various Universities in and around the Liverpool area and might also include an exhibition at the Sydney Jones Library. The LADA scholarship has allowed me to come to Liverpool from across the channel and work on my project in a city that is culturally significant to my project. At the same time, the award allows me to do regular teaching, which will be invaluable experience for my future career.
Through my teaching and writing, I hope to inspire (future) scholars to think about my project in their own research. If I could inspire others to write about ideas similar to those I am currently exploring, from their own cultural and linguistic backgrounds, that would make a profound change. I hope this change will positively influence the publishing and educational scene to include more realistic, multicultural representations that do not avoid dark histories but investigate how to introduce them to young readers.