Lucia’s research focuses primarily on representations of sexual assault in literature and other media. Her scholarly work is grounded in the interdisciplinary field of trauma theory, with particular interests in silence and the unspeakable and traumatic embodiments. She is also a specialist in Canadian literature and drama, and her work on sexual assault frequently situates itself in works produced by Canadian writers and dramatists, as well as writers and dramatists from Indigenous nations across the northern part of Turtle Island.
Her postdoctoral research is an investigation into the figure of the perpetrator. This two-year project, now-titled “Unspectacular and Always Human” (after W.H. Auden), emphasizes the importance of rethinking how perpetrator narratives (ones created by perpetrators, and ones written about them) contribute to public discussions of violence. By tracing a history of the production and reception of these texts, the goals of her research are not only to challenge a tendency for our discussions to focus on whether or not such stories should or can be told, but also to illustrate that perpetrators’ stories can reveal as much about public assumptions and beliefs as they do about those of the perpetrators themselves.
You can follow her postdoctoral work through the project’s research blog, located HERE.
Lucia M. Lorenzi, PhD 