CHELSEA HAITH
Writer/Researcher
I am a final year doctoral researcher at the University of Oxford, working on speculation and urban inequalities. My research interests include speculative fiction, AI-assisted creativity, refugee poetry, gender studies, postcolonial theory, and representations of humanitarian crises such as climate chaos, totalitarianism, technocracy, corporate greed and global poverty.
Uncomfortable Oxford
Literary Tour
I wrote the script and hosted the walking tour 'Uncomfortable Oxford Literary Tour' during the October 2019 IF Festival. Read about the motivations of this work on the Uncomfortable Oxford blog.
Oxford Science and Ideas Festival
I represented Futures Thinking at the 2019 Oxford Science and Ideas Festival, running an interactive research project titled 'The Noise That Keeps Me Awake At Night.' Below is a page from the IF Festival's programme that featured a profile on my work.
BIO
@chelsea_haith
My research interests in urban cohesion (or lack thereof) and literary representations of humanitarian crises originates from witnessing systemic exclusion during my childhood spent in Johannesburg, South Africa. I completed a Bachelor of Arts and a BA Honours at the University Currently Known as Rhodes before moving to the University of Cape Town to pursue a second Honours degree in Gender Studies. Following the completion of this Bachelor of Social Sciences Honours at UCT I moved to the UK, where I joined the Centre for Modern Studies at the University of York. I obtained a Masters in Culture and Thought After 1945 from the University of York, which led me to adopt an interdisciplinary framework for my current research. Currently, I am a fully-funded DPhil candidate at the University of Oxford in the Faculty of English, based at Wolfson College. I am the PI and founder of the research network Futures Thinking and the creator of the podcast Narrative Futures. My research is on speculative fiction as a political literary genre that engages concerns from urban inequalities and decolonial theory.
I'm a skilled editor, proofreader, and project manager. Experience in media, publishing, volunteering and higher education public engagement projects has given me aptitude in rendering research accessible to non-expert audiences.
EDITING
From years of supervising undergraduate dissertations at Oxford, to my time as an editor on a small literary journal, to my 'dog's body' days at an experimental poetry publisher, I'm experienced in editing and proofreading across genres and forms.
Storytelling
I've research background in speculative urban inequalities and narrative traction, with real world application in my Narrative Futures podcast. I'm interested in working on storytelling projects in the capacity of conceptual editor or as a strategist in the case of the advertising or development communications industries.
Collaboration
Developing and running a research network in the fields of futurity and the Humanities, I've written successful grant applications and built networks across diverse disciplines with a small collaborative team.
I'm currently engaged in a interdisciplinary project at the intersection of AI, music composition and narratology.
The Sound of Contagion
is coming soon.
Consulting
Doctoral research prepares you for... doing even more research! Transferable skills I've gained along the way include compiling non-academic reports on complex topics, communicating research to less expert audiences, tackling long and short-term projects, taking initiative, problem-solving, working with qualitative and quantitative data and developing fantastic communication skills.