Paul E. Blom, PhD Student 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 student 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 intersection 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. 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.
He currently maintains his own small business, Blom Writing Services, out of the Chapel Hill area, through which he 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 promotional videos, short narrative films, and documentary films.
In 2015, 2016, 2019, and 2022, 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. He has served as Co-Director of the Literature, Medicine, and Culture Colloquium (LMCC) with Rachel Warner at UNC since January 2020.
In addition to continuing his teaching and his own studies, Paul continues to collaborate with others on their writing projects through Blom Writing Services, especially on short narrative or documentary films as well as promotional videos for small business and non-profit organizations. He also composes original poetry, short fiction, creative non-fiction, and drama. His other interests include digital media, visual literacy and narratives, movies and film, narratology, theory of the body, mythology or folklore, poetry from the Romantic period, magical realism, and superhero or epic fantasy narratives. In his free time, Paul also enjoys soccer, running, photography, woodworking, or just watching a good movie.
For more information, contact Paul directly.
Paul E. Blom 