Dr. Christine Lehnen

You may find my CV and a complete list of publications here.

Artistic Intelligence: Creative Writing and Artistic Practice in the Twenty-First Century: 'Artistic intelligence' is a nascent term that tries to capture a challenge that creative writing scholars and artists have had to grapple with for decades: how do we articulate the type of the knowledge that we generate through our practice, research and teaching, and how do we describe the unique contribution that the arts make to a happy, healthy, and safe society? While the public debate is focused on Large Language Models (LLMs) and methods of artificial intelligence (AI), the European Union is set to publish a HORIZON funding call which asks explicitly for projects that illuminate the phenomenon of 'artistic intelligence,' a term phrased in opposition to and in interplay with 'artificial intelligence.' I am organising a symposium in Hamburg in 2026 which will bring together practitioners, artists, writers, and creative writing and humanities scholars from the UK, Europe, the United States, Australia and all over the globe. Together, we will discuss what 'artistic intelligence' may be and what creative writing research and practice has done to accumulate it over the past thirty years. How can creative writing help us better understand 'artistic intelligence,' the contributions that the arts and humanities have made to building a better future for all, and how may we harness 'artistic intelligence' in the service of our local, regional, national and global communities in the decades to come?

Looking at the Stars: Christine has submitted a funding bid for a major interdisciplinary collaboration between the sciences and creative research, which is currently under consideration by the Leverhulme Trust. Together with Dr Raphaëlle Haywood (Astrophysics, University of Exeter), Christine will research and develop a sustainable narrative for space exploration that goes beyond space billionaires' stories about 'mining the moon' or 'colonising Mars' and refocus our attention on humanity's custodianship of our only home in the cosmos, Planet Earth.

SE Eighteen: Christine is editing SE Eighteen, a glocalised magazine for contemporary writing. The magazine is open for submissions from writers of all backgrounds and at all career stages. All promotion for the magazine, including its call for submissions, will be analogue.

I am pleased to support international PhD research in Creative Writing and welcome approaches from universities and candidates abroad, particularly in the United Kingdom, regarding opportunities for co-supervision or examination. Doctoral supervision is not formally part of my duties at the University of Hamburg at present, but I remain available for supervision and examination for partners in the UK and beyond.

My areas of expertise include book-length prose fiction, experimental fiction, political writing, historical fiction and narrative non-fiction. I have a particular interest in projects that examine the shape of the twenty-first-century littérature engagée and in writers exploring how prose can engage with the fundamental issues of our time. 

I am also available to act as an external examiner for PhD dissertations in Creative Writing and have previously examined doctoral candidates in creative writing and historical fiction at the Universities of Kent and East Anglia.