Dr Alanah Mortlock

Biography

Alanah is a feminist theorist of identity, with particular investments in Black feminist thought and theories of Blackness. She is an ESRC Postdoctoral Fellow in the School of Education, Communication and Society at King’s College London, having previously completed her PhD at the Department of Gender Studies, London School of Economics and Political Sciences. Alanah is currently working on a book project developed out of her doctoral research; this project analyses how academic and popular discourses of “transracialism” interact with theorisations of Blackness, engaging a critical lens invested in Black feminist and trans scholarship and politics. Her interest in this topic emerged from her own experiences of racial ambivalence as a mixed-race woman, and her work explores methodological and epistemological interventions of self-reflection and -interrogation that explore affect as a site of knowledge.

Alanah’s writing has appeared in Feminist Theory and European Journal of Women Studies, as well as the LSE Engenderings blog, of which she is also a member of the editorial collective. Her wider research interests include Black and trans feminisms; theories and critiques of identity; and feminist epistemologies and methodologies.

Research interests

• Black (and) trans feminisms
• Theories and critiques of identity
• Critical social theory
• Feminist epistemologies and methodologies
• Racial liminality