Hannah Smith (she/her) is a PhD student in Literature, Criticism, and Textual Studies and a teaching associate from the Houston, TX area. Her research focuses on 20th and 21st-century genre fiction. She is particularly interested in the ways literature is categorized by genre, age appropriateness, target audience, or as literary or genre fiction, since so many of those categories are fluid and constantly changing. Her master’s research focused on popular fantasy novels written by female authors, investigating how genre constraints and publishing practices affect what power female authors and characters have within the fantasy genre. She hopes to expand the scope of her research into other genres, digital humanities, and fandom studies in the future.  

When Hannah is not in class, researching, or teaching, she enjoys hiking, rock climbing, watching movies, and drinking coffee. She has been lucky enough to study literature in beautiful parts of Arkansas, Colorado, and now Tennessee and plans to be outside whenever she can.