Dr Reena Sastri (PhD, PGDE, MPhil, BA)

Lecturer in Literature and Cultural Studies, Centre for Open Learning

Biography

Background

I grew up near Boston, Massachusetts, in the US and first came to the UK for a study abroad semester as an undergraduate. After completing my PhD, I held academic positions at the University of Oxford and the University of York before coming to Edinburgh. 

Qualifications

PGDE (Secondary English), University of Edinburgh

PhD, Boston University 

MPhil, University of Oxford

BA summa cum laude, Amherst College

Research summary

My independent research focuses on 20th and 21st century poetry (mainly American). I've published articles and chapters on poets including W. H. Auden, Frank Bidart, Anne Carson, Loiuse Glück, James Merrill, and Sylvia Plath, and a book, James Merrill: Knowing Innocence. I'm now working on a book about the poetry and poetics of Nobel Prize winning American poet Louise Glück (1943-2023). 

I regularly present at academic conferences including the meetings of the International Network for the Study of Lyric (INSL), most recently in Montréal (2025), Oslo (2023) and Lausanne (2019). I referee for journals including PMLA and Twentieth Century Literature.

I teach a variety of Lifelong Learning courses in Literature at the Centre for Open Learning, including:

  • Understanding Poetry
  • The Contemporary American Novel 
  • Writing Unreason
  • 20th-century American Poetry
  • Modernist Fiction

I also teach a course which I co-developed, Analysing Text and Material Culture, on the International Foundation Programme.

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