Ph.D. Students

Chandler Shaw is a PhD Candidate in the English Department at Boston College. She moved to Massachusetts in the summer of 2017 and now resides in Somerville with her partner, two cats, and a dog. Chandler’s research interests include American literary nonfiction, longform journalism, and the lyric essay. She is interested in how storytellers in these genres use narrative to shape community bonds and national identities. Her dissertation will be a series of essays that interrogate how bedrock mythologies, cultural narratives, and built and natural environments shape community—in particular, her hometown in West Texas. The concept of the mythological West—perpetuated by filmmakers, politicians, journalists, and local boosters alike—obfuscates and diminishes the lived experience of those who live there, even as it enhances the metanarrative that locals and non-locals alike value and believe. A born-and-raised Texan, Chandler grew up in the midst of this narrative, but found the stories of rugged cowboys, conservative individualism, and enterprising pioneers insufficient to explain the lives of herself and others. Her research and creative writing calls into question what it means to live in ‘The West’ in the 21 st century. Through this mixture of research, literary criticism, and creative writing, Chandler traces the way the mythological West shows up within the landscape, the artistic representations of West Texas in literature and other mediums, as well as in how the region understands its relationship to government and democratic ideals.