Gry Ulstein

research policy officer

academic manager

literary scholar

about

What tools and services help academics produce and disseminate high-quality research effectively? How can I contribute to a sustainably excellent and ethical academic environment in which pluralism and mental health are recognized and implemented as foundational pillars for innovation and education?

These questions motivate me in my professional life, after more than a decade of working at different European universities. I want to use my organizational talent and analytical skills to make academic processes and policies more transparent and efficient, based on my experience navigating different academic contexts.

As a researcher, I investigate(d) how speculative narrative modes like the Weird expand the environmental imagination and open up new ways of responding to ecological crises in contemporary fiction. My broad experience as a scholar on the one hand and university administrator on the other, makes me well-positioned to help improve the university as an institution.

education

Ghent University: Doctor of Literary Studies

  • October 2017 – January 2022

  • Dissertation title: “Weird Fiction in a Warming World: A Reading Strategy for the Anthropocene”

  • ERC Horizon 2020 project “NARMESH” (grant No 714166) 

Utrecht University: Master of the Arts

  • September 2014 – July 2016

  • Thesis title: “The Ecological Weird: Anthropocene Monsters in Cosmic Horror Fiction and Ecocritical Debate” 

University of Oslo: Bachelor of the Arts

  • August 2010 – June 2013

  • Erasmus exchange: Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (2013)

work experience

Vrije Universiteit Brussel: Research Policy Officer

Ghent University: Joint PhD Coordinator

  • January 2021–August 2024

  • academic administration, contract negotiation, academic diplomacy, policy

Utrecht University: Personal Assistant; Editor

  • Personal assistant to prof. Rosi Braidotti

    • September 2016–September 2017

    • administration, event management, (book) editing, fundraising, archiving

  • Editor of FRAME – Journal of Literary Studies

    • April 2015-July 2017

    • editing, proofreading, administration, event planning, leadership

public talks/science communication

  • Panel discussion. “Kan literatuur de wereld redden?,” Ecopolis Fair(er) Futures Festival, 29 November 2025, Muntpunt, Brussels, Belgium.

  • Invited lecture. “The Brightness Growing Within: Area X’s Vegetal Becomings,” VUB Crosstalks, More-than-human Encounters: Radical Botany, Tendrilesque Writing, 19 October 2021, Kaaitheater, Brussels, Belgium.

academic writing

see also Google Scholar and ResearchGate

  • Ulstein, Gry. “Global Weirding.” Umwelt Wiki for Key Concepts in the (Germanic) Environmental Humanities, edited by Anna-Maria Senuysal, The Ohio State University, 2025.

  • Ulstein, Gry. “Forms and Themes of the Eco-Weird: Experimentation and Play in a Warming World.” The Call of the Eco-Weird in Fiction, Film, and Games, edited by Brian Onishi and Nathan M. Bell, Palgrave Macmillan, 2025.

    • Read it here (paywall) or here (preprint).

  • Caracciolo, Marco, Kristin Ferebee, Shannon Lambert, Heidi Toivonen, and Gry Ulstein. “Uncertainty and the limits of narrative: An introduction.” Frontiers of Narrative Studies, vol. 9, no. 2, 2024, pp. 185–89.

    • Read it here (paywall).

  • Caracciolo, Marco, Kristin Ferebee, Shannon Lambert, Heidi Toivonen, and Gry Ulstein. “Climate Fiction: A Posthumanist Survey.” Interférences Litéraires, vol. 27, no. 2, 2022, pp. 6–21.

  •  Caracciolo, Marco, and Gry Ulstein. “The Weird and the Meta in Jeff VanderMeer’s Dead Astronauts.” Configurations, vol. 30, no. 1, 2022, pp. 1–23.

    • Read it here (paywall) or here (preprint).

  •  Ulstein, Gry. Weird Fiction in a Warming World : A Reading Strategy for the Anthropocene. Ghent University. Faculty of Arts and Philosophy, 2021.

  • Ulstein, Gry. “‘Heights They Should Never Have Scaled’: Our Weird Planet.” SubStance, special issue, “Ecocriticism and Narrative Form,” edited by Casper et al., vol. 50, no. 3, 2021, pp. 14–33.

  • Caracciolo, Marco, Susannah Crockford, Shannon Lambert, and Gry Ulsteinl. “Phenomenology of everyday climate : an ethnographic approach to metaphor, affect, and the nonhuman.” ISLE-Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and the Environment, vol. 30, no. 2, 2023, pp. 353–76.

  • Ulstein, Gry. “Weird.” More Posthuman Glossary, 2nd edition, edited by Rosi Braidotti et al., Bloomsbury Academic, 2022, pp. 159–61.

    • Read it here (preprint).

  • Ulstein, Gry. “‘Just a Surface’: Nonhuman Narration in Jeff VanderMeer’s The Strange Bird.” Nonhuman Agency in the 21st Century Novel, edited by Yvonne Liebermann et al, Palgrave Macmillan, 2021, pp. 277–96.

    • Read it here (paywall) or here (preprint).

  • Haas, Sarah, Alexander De Soete, and Gry Ulstein. “Zooming Through Covid: Fostering Safe Communities of Critical Reflection via Online Writers' Group Interaction,” Double Helix: Journal of Critical Thinking and Writing, vol. 8, 2020.

  • Mertens, Mahlu, and Gry Ulstein. “Decolonizing the Cli-Fi Corpus.” Collateral – Online Journal for Cross-Cultural Close Reading, edited by Stef Craps, no. 26, 2020.

  • Ulstein, Gry. “‘Through the eyes of Area X’: (Dis)locating Ecological Hope via New Weird Spatiality.” Spaces and Fictions of the Weird and the Fantastic: Ecologies, Geographies, Oddities, edited by Julius Greve and Florian Zappe, Palgrave MacMillan, 2019, pp. 129-47.

    • Read it here (paywall) or here (preprint).

  • Ulstein, Gry. “What’s Weird about Giant Flying Bears? The Weird Revisited in the Anthropocene.” Collateral – Online Journal for Cross-Cultural Close Reading, no. 15, “The Weird,” July 2019.

  • Ulstein, Gry. “‘Age of Lovecraft’? Anthropocene Monsters in (New) Weird Narrative.” NORDLIT, no. 42, 2019, pp. 47–66.

  • Ulstein, Gry. “Brave New Weird: Anthropocene Monsters in Jeff VanderMeer’s The Southern Reach.” Concentric, vol. 43, no. 1, edited by Ioana Luca, vol. 43, no. 1, Department of English, National Taiwan Normal University, 2017, pp. 71–96.

  • Ulstein, Gry. “Hobbits, Ents, and Daemons: Ecocritical Thought Embodied in the Fantastic.” Fafnir, vol. 2, no. 4, 2015, pp. 7-17.

conference presentations

  • Shaikjee, Ahmed, and Gry Ulstein. “Fostering Collaborative Interinstitutional Infrastructure for Joint PhDs: Administration as a Facilitator, Not a Barrier.” GAPSYM16: Knowledge production, research ethics and authorship in African contexts, 13-14 November 2023, University of the Western Cape, Cape Town, South Africa, 2023.

  • Ulstein, Gry. “The Ludic Weird.” Inaugural Symposium of the Society for the Study of the Eco-Weird, 30 September 2023, Penn State University, online, 2023.

  • Ulstein, Gry. “Weirding the Narrative: New Weird Formal Experiments.” Anthropocenes. Reworking the Wound. Organized by the European Society for Literature, Science and the Arts, 17-20 June 2020, University of Katowice, online, 2020.

  •  Ulstein, Gry. “‘I Know It when I Feel It’: The Anthropocene as Weird Narrative.” The Society for the Study of Narrative (ISSN) Annual Conference, 5-7 March 2020. State University, Intercontinental Hotel, New Orleans, LA, USA, 2020.

  •  Mertens, Mahlu, and Gry Ulstein. “Decolonizing Climate Change Fiction.” Annual Conference of the Belgian Association of Anglicists in Higher Education (BAAHE), 19 December 2019, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium, 2019.

  •  Ulstein, Gry. “Parasites on Fire: Human Infection in Weird Ecohorror.” Paradise on Fire: ASLE Biennial Conference, 26-30 June 2019, University of Davis, CA, USA, 2019.

  •  Ulstein, Gry. “‘The tower, which was not supposed to be there’: Weird Unnarration.” The Society for the Study of Narrative (ISSN) Annual Conference, 29 May-1 June 2019, University of Navarra, Pamplona, Spain, 2019.

  •  Ulstein, Gry. “The Weird Tale as Anthropocene Parable.” Tales of Terror: Gothic, Horror, and Weird Short Fiction, 21-22 March 2019, University of Warwick, Coventry, England, 2019.

  •  Ulstein, Gry. “‘Just a Surface’: Nonhuman Narration in Jeff VanderMeer’s The Strange Bird (2017).” Tracing Nonhuman Agency in Literatures in English, 15-17 November 2018, Heinrich-Heine-University Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf Germany, 2018.

  • Ulstein, Gry. “Chthonic Climate Fiction: Monsters from Beneath.” The Society for the Study of Narrative (ISSN) Annual Conference, 19-22 April 2018, McGill University, Montréal, Canada, 2018.

  •  Caracciolo, Marco, et al. “Narrating the Mesh: Formal Solutions to Anthropocenic Challenges.” Confronting Narratives of the Anthropocene, 23-24 November 2017, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland, 2017.

  •  Ulstein, Gry. “Monstrous Autopoiesis in Jeff VanderMeer’s The Southern Reach.” The European Association for the Study of Literature, Culture and Environment (EASLCE): 7th Biennial Conference, 27-30 October 2016, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Brussels, Belgium, 2016.