Knar (they/any) is a sixth-year graduate student researching ecopoetics and the shifting role of literary and media forms amidst environmental crisis. Knar's research is particularly attuned to the many vectors through which U.S. empire perpetuates and accelerates global environmental change. They hold graduate degrees from Syracuse University (MA 2016) and the Iowa Writers' Workshop (MFA, 2013), where they received a John C. Schupes fellowship for their manuscript Cotor: Excerpts from Variable Road. Knar is the author of the chapbook Vela. (the Operating System, 2019) and recent poems can be found in Foundry, Storm Cellar, AGNI, West Branch, and Denver Quartlery. You can find their recent essay on climate grief at Annulet.
A past graduate fellow at both the Penn Program for Environmental Humanities and the Penn Office of Sustainability, Knar has served as co-coordinator of two working groups: Anthropocene & Animal Studies (Fall 2019 and Spring 2020) and Poetry & Poetics (Fall 2018 - Spring 2020). Knar co-created the covidXclimate project and currently serves as a reader for Birdfeast.