Paul E. Blom (he/him), PhD Candidate and Teaching Fellow, Dept. of English and Comparative Literature, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Field: Twentieth-Century American Literature
Focus: Health Humanities; Trauma Studies
Originally from LaGrange, GA, Paul Blom (he/him) received his BA in English with a minor in Creative Writing from Birmingham-Southern College in Birmingham, AL and his MA in English from DePaul University in Chicago, IL. He is currently a doctoral candidate in English Literature at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where he has a Teaching Fellowship and teaches courses in rhetoric and composition as well as the occasional literature course.
Paul’s research focuses on American Literature in “the long twentieth century” (1865-contemporary) and its intersections with health humanities and literary trauma studies. Specifically, Paul is interested in how we depict and discuss the events, effects, perpetrators, and survivors of psychological trauma in literature, film, and other media, especially events of violence and atrocity. He is also intensely interested in the ethical and political implications of such depictions. His research has involved extensive work with underserved populations regarding trauma, illness, embodiment, and representation.
In 2015, 2016, 2019, 2022, and 2024, he served as the Teaching Fellow for the Yale University Summer Session study-abroad course “Visual Approaches to Global Health,” taught by Professor Jonathan Smith. In this course, Yale undergrads learn to combine traditional epidemiological methods with visual storytelling and filmmaking techniques to address various public health issues in Johannesburg, South Africa and Mbabane, Eswatini (formerly named “Swaziland”).
Paul served as the Fiction Editor for The Carolina Quarterly, the oldest continuous literary magazine in North Carolina, from January 2018 through May of 2022. Additionally, he has served as the Co-Director of the Literature, Medicine, and Culture Colloquium (LMCC) at UNC since January 2020.
In addition to continuing his teaching and his own studies, Paul provides editing, tutoring, and copy writing services for clients around the country. He also has an ongoing professional relationship with Creative Cabin Studios and Visual Epidemiology, Inc. for which he writes scripts for short narrative or documentary films as well as scripts for promotional videos for small businesses and non-profit organizations. He also composes his own original poetry, short fiction, creative non-fiction, and drama while continuing his own academic research.
In addition, Paul enjoys running, soccer, woodworking, amateur photography, magical realism, literature from the Romantic period, superhero narratives, film studies, postmodern literature, narratology, and live dramatic theatre and musical theatre.
For more information, contact Paul directly.
Paul E. Blom 