Sarah Senk, PhD

Secretary

Sarah Senk, PhD is an associate professor in the Department of Culture and Communication at California State University Maritime Academy. She completed her Ph.D. in Comparative Literature in 2011 at Cornell University, where she focused on contemporary Anglophone writing, trauma theory, and memory studies, examining how literary production in former British colonies has responded to a legacy of colonial violence and loss. Her current research deals with both the impact and representation of trauma and anxiety in contemporary literature and visual culture.

She has published articles in The Canadian Review of American Studies, Symbolism: An International Annual of Critical Aesthetics, Transformations: The Journal of Inclusive Scholarship and Pedagogy, and Contemporaries: Post45, as well as essays on memorialization in The American Prospect and Slate, and is currently working on a book manuscript on post-9/11 commemorative practices.

Sarah formally joined Marked by COVID in December 2021 as a member of the Board of Directors and works closely with community members, Activists, and allies to ensure equitable memorialization of our losses. Sarah is co-director of Marked by COVID’s Memorial Matrix and recent author of an Outlook Perspective in The Washington Post about COVID recognition with 9/11 Survivor Lila Nordstrom.