Lorna McCarron is a PhD candidate in the Georgetown University German department. Her dissertation uses a material feminist lens to assess how corporeality is depicted in works of contemporary German-language literature that deal with the experiences of women, non-binary individuals, people with disabilities, and older people. Funded by a DAAD research grant, Lorna is spending the academic year 2025–26 at Humboldt University in Berlin as she completes her dissertation.
Lorna was a 2022–23 Georgetown University Medical Humanities fellow. During this time, she worked on her article “Therapists, Vending Machines, and Winding Roads: Race and Mental Health in Olivia Wenzel’s 1000 Serpentinen Angst,” which won the 2023 Women in German Studies essay prize and has since appeared in the German Quarterly. From 2023 to 2024, Lorna was the editorial assistant for Gegenwartsliteratur: Ein germanistisches Jahrbuch (vols. 22 and 23). She is currently serving as the graduate student representative to the board of the German Studies Association.