Dr Chiara Pellegrini
I am a researcher and educator working in the Higher Education sector. My areas of expertise are equality, diversity and inclusion, narrative analysis, gender and sexuality, and contemporary culture.
I currently work as Equity and Inclusion Consultant at Canterbury Christ Church University, where I advise on EDI strategy, develop diversity and inclusion training, lead on equality policies and processes, and organise events.
Education
2022 Ph.D. in English Literature | Newcastle University
Trans Forms: Gender-Variant Subjectivity and First-Person Narration
2015 M.A. in Philosophy and Contemporary Critical Theory
Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy | Kingston University
2014 B.A. in English Literature with Linguistics | University of Westminster
Publications
Books
Pellegrini, Chiara. Trans Narrators: First-Person Form and the Gendered Body in Contemporary Literature. Edinburgh University Press, 2025.
Special Issues
Gillis, Stacy and Chiara Pellegrini (eds.) The Cultural Politics of Greta Gerwig’s Barbie. Special Issue of Feminist Theory 25.4 (2024).
Mejeur, Cody and Chiara Pellegrini (eds.) Trans/forming Narrative Studies. Special Issue of Narrative 32.2 (2024).
Book Chapters
Pellegrini, Chiara. 'When Narrative Studies Meets Trans Studies: Reflections on Methodology with Bellies and Pew'. Palgrave Handbook of Feminist, Queer and Trans Narrative Studies. Eds. Vera Nünning and Corinna Assmann (Palgrave 2025).
Pellegrini, Chiara. Trans. This is Not a Feminism Textbook! Eds. Catherine Rottenberg and Sarah Kember (Goldsmiths Press 2023): 74-79.
Pellegrini, Chiara. “Declining to Describe”: Intersex Narrators and Textual Visibility . Interdisciplinary and Global Perspectives on Intersex. Ed. Megan Walker (Palgrave 2022): 49-64.
Pellegrini, Chiara. Adaptation as Queer Touching in The Safety of Objects: Transgressing the Boundaries of Bodies and Texts. Queer/Adaptation. Ed. Pamela Demory (Palgrave 2019): 107-120.
Articles, Interviews, and Reports
Pellegrini, Chiara. Temporalities Beyond Transition: Form, Genre, and Contemporary Trans Novels . Studies in the Novel 55.4 (2023): 492-508.
Pellegrini, Chiara. Anticipating the Plot: Overdetermining Heteronormative Destiny on the Twenty-First- Century Screen. Textual Practice (2022): 1-23.
Pellegrini, Chiara. The ‘I’ in Trans-genre: An Interview with Juliet Jacques.TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly 7.1 (2020): 105-113.
Pellegrini, Chiara. Posttranssexual Temporalities: Negotiating Canonical Memoir Narratives in Kate Bornstein’s Gender Outlaw and Juliet Jacques’ Trans. a/b: Auto/Biography Studies 34. 1 (2019): 45-65.
Gillis, Stacy and Chiara Pellegrini. What Sort of Feedback Do Phds Want and Need in the Future? Wonkhe, 10 Feb. 2023.
Gillis, Stacy and Chiara Pellegrini. Technologies for Feedback and Advice in PGR Supervision. Case Studies Database, Learning and Teaching Development Service, Newcastle University, 25 Oct. 2022.
Conference Organisation
Teaching
For five years, I taught in the School of English at Newcastle University. My teaching strengths include close reading and narrative analysis, contemporary literature, television and film, marginalised identities, and writing for academic settings.
I am particularly experienced at facilitating interactive seminars, discussion groups, and workshops.
At Canterbury Christ Church University, I design and run training on Equality Impact Assessments, bias and discrimination, inclusive language, equality and protected groups, and intersectionality.
Talks and Podcasts
Evolving Equality Impact Assessments through an EIA Community of Practice (UHR Connects South Conference).
Our approach to Equity and Inclusion. Diversity and Inclusion: How do we know we're getting it right? (CIPD Kent)
Queering Narrative Structures in Kai Cheng Thom’s Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars. Girl Meets Girl: Queer Narratology Workshop (invited).
Gendered Bodies and Narrative Form. Queer Literature Podcast.
TransForming Narrative Studies: A Roundtable. Narrative 2022, University of Chichester (panel organiser).
Transnarratology. Narrare: Centre for Interdisciplinary Narrative Studies, Tampere University (invited).
Narrative for Social Justice. Podcast of the International Society for the Study of Narrative (host).
Temporalities Beyond Transition: Narrative Times in Contemporary Trans Novels. Modern Languages Association Convention, Washington, DC.
Border Control: Metaphors of Space in Trans-Exclusionary Feminism and Nationalist Politics. Gender-Critical Feminism and the Far-Right, Newcastle University.
Trans Re-narrations: Embodied Temporalities and Contemporary Forms. Narrative 2021, International Society for the Study of Narrative.
Haunted Homes: Ghostly Co-Embodiments and Trans Inhabitations. The Material Life of Time, Temporal Belongings Network.
Trans-inhabiting Aliens: Gender-variant Embodiment and Science Fiction’s Crossing of Borders. Beyond Borders: Empires, Bodies, Science Fictions, London Science Fiction Research Community.
Concealed Knowledges, Controlled Exposures: Fictionalizing Intersex Narration in Jeffrey Eugenides’ Middlesex and Wesley Stace’s Misfortune. Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Intersex, University of Lincoln.
“You Treat All of Mankind as your Woman”: Human Masculinities and Alien Non-binary Genders in Feminist Science Fiction of the 1970s and 80s. Historicising Masculinities, Newcastle University.
‘Time for a Change: Embodied Social Temporalities and Trans Life Narratives’. The Social Life of Time: Power, Discrimination and Transformation, University of Edinburgh.