Ms Emma McCabe

Emma McCabe is a PhD candidate at the University of Stirling, co-supervised by the University of Glasgow. She is part of the Critical Religion Programme at Stirling and holds a BA in English & Religion and an MRes in Humanities. Throughout her university career, Emma has developed a keen interest in apophaticism as a theo-philosophical and literary framework, pursuing questions of God, gender, and unknowability throughout early modern literature. Her doctoral thesis aims to expand upon these conversations to interrogate the category of sex in early modern Europe and to create a trans-inclusive feminism for today. In doing so, her project will call into question the historical production of the female body, challenging the assumed scientific naturalness of its cis-heterosexuality through the application of apophatic analysis. As such, she aims to articulate the fluidity of female embodiment by rethinking negation as central to reshaping understandings of sex and gender, especially as they relate to Renaissance medical, dramatic, and religious discourses.

Her doctoral work is funded by the Scottish Graduate School of Arts & Humanities, for which she is also a doctoral representative for the Theology, Religion & Divinity Training Catalyst. Most recently, she was awarded a Holstein Dissertation Fellowship (2021-2022) from the University of California, Riverside, for queer and transgender studies in the field of Religion. As part of the Fellowship, Emma will be mentored by Professor Arthur Little, UCLA.

Her primary supervisor at Stirling is Dr Andrew Hass, Reader in Religion. Secondary supervisors include Dr Angus Vine, Associate Professor in English Studies at Stirling & Professor Heather Walton, Professor of Theology & Creative Practice at Glasgow.

Apophaticism, Continental Philosophy, Hermeneutics, History of Medicine, Renaissance Drama, Early Modern Physiology, Sex, Gender, Literary Theory, Deconstruction, Feminism, Queer Histories.