Rate My Professor Meg Jensen

Dr. Meg Jensen is Professor in English Literature and Creative Writing in the Department of Humanities at Kingston School of Art, Kingston University London. She holds a BA in Liberal Arts from Sarah Lawrence College, New York (1985), an MA in English Literature with Distinction from New York University (1991), and a PhD in English Literature from Queen Mary, University of London (1996). A Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (SFHEA) since 2017, she directs the Centre for Life Narratives, leads the Life Narratives research strand within the Writing Cultures Group, and co-leads the Kingston Charity Research Network.

Jensen's research examines representations of human rights violations and traumatic experiences in narrative forms such as memoir, testimony, poetry, graphic novels, monuments, and autobiographical novels, alongside the social, cultural, gendered, and familial contexts of production. She bridges literary analysis with behavioral, psychological, and neurochemical approaches to trauma diagnosis and treatment. Her practice-based research includes creative non-fiction and autobiographical novels on trauma. Key publications encompass The Art and Science of Trauma and the Autobiographical: Negotiated Truths (Palgrave, 2019), The Open Book: Creative Misreadings in the Works of Selected Modern Authors (2002), The Expressive Life Writing Handbook (with Siobhan Campbell, 2016), editor of Prelude & Other Stories by Katherine Mansfield (2021), and the forthcoming Grief Work as Autotheory: Sisterhood, Suicide and Art (2026). She has published extensively in journals and chapters on post-traumatic memory, life writing, and expressive writing ethics.

Jensen's influence extends to applied projects with humanitarian impact: AHRC-funded Expressive Life Writing in Lebanon (2020, £25,000; 2018-19, £47,000), UK FCO Stigma Project (£2,400, 2016), UNDP SIRI in Iraq (£1,500, 2017), Viaro Energy for COVID-19 health workers (£10,000, 2020), and UK Cabinet Office CVE (£7,400, 2017). These initiatives support well-being for survivors in conflict and crisis. She teaches Creative Writing at BA (Hons), MA, MFA, and PhD levels, specializing in autobiographical forms, and English Literature from the late 18th century to the present.