Lauren Bunce is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of English and pursuing a Certificate in the Program in Gender and Sexuality Studies. Her peer-reviewed scholarship can be found in JMMLA (“The Art of Artlessness: Affective Labor and the Black Mask in Gertrude Stein’s ‘Melanctha,’” 2023) and the Henry James Review (“The Work of Being Worked (For): Intimacy, Knowledge, and Affective Labor in the Works of Henry James,” 2024).

Lauren’s dissertation, “Narrative Work: Social Reproduction and the Strategy of Refusal in American Literature,” considers how literary texts in the long nineteenth century demand “narrative work” as an alternative mode of reading labor, gender, and race. Her work aims to reimagine the place of work and necessity of care in modern society. To that end, she has taught courses in secondary school and has also served on the instructional team for ENG 304 (Children’s Literature) and GSS 201 (Introduction to Gender and Sexuality Studies).

Throughout her time at Princeton, Lauren has been a representative for the Working Group on Graduate Issues, co-chair of the Department of English’s Americanist Colloquium, co-organizer of the Gender and Sexuality Studies Reading Group, Peer Mentor for the Graduate Scholars Program, and Team Leader of the Scribner Collection in Firestone Library. Prior to coming to Princeton in 2021, she graduated summa cum laude from Duke University with a B.A. in English and Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies.