Ms Emma McCabe

I am an AHRC-funded PhD researcher at the University of Stirling and the University of Glasgow, and a member of the Scottish Graduate School of Arts & Humanities.

My thesis, “‘Is this nothing?’: Apophatic Embodiment and Modes of Unknowing in Early Modernity”, develops an apophatic account of embodiment in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Moving between Renaissance anatomy, humoral discourse, and commercial theatre, I ask why the body becomes most difficult to know at moments where it seems most readily available to interpretation. I pursue this question through analysing historical sources, chiefly Renaissance medical treatises and popular plays, in which anatomical and humoral bodies are opened, staged, sexualised, and otherwise read under conditions of epistemological obscurity. Across such texts, anatomical exposure and dramatic spectacle rarely guarantee understanding; more often, they reveal the negating mechanisms through which bodies paradoxically disrupt and produce meaning.

In response to these conceptual difficulties, I construct an apophatic hermeneutics of embodiment; a theoretical framework which brings together apophatic discourse, Christian mysticism, deconstruction, and post-structural philosophies of embodiment to explore the limits of bodily knowledge in the Renaissance as they pertain to issues of language, desire, appearance, and self-possession. Rather than applying apophasis as a ready-made theological model, I use it instead to think through the tensions which arise when the sensuous body strains against the symbolic systems that organise and represent it. At these thresholds, knowledge does not vanish but emerges by way of partial, ambiguous, and often contradictory ordonnances, engendered by the same enmities that prevent the body from settling into interpretive certainty. Here, apophatic negation offers a way to think meaning without mastery. It does not deny that the body can be known but instead insists that knowledge of the body, and of embodied existence, remains unstable and open-ended by necessity. The body can therefore appear, signify, and solicit meaning, even as it refuses the fantasy of perfect knowledge and complete self-assurance.

Methodologically, I place Jean-Luc Nancy in sustained dialogue with both primary and secondary texts, offering an apophatic reading of his philosophy of embodiment while simultaneously using this to construct the thesis’ central hermeneutic frame. Nancy's thought moves through the discussion in two interrelated ways: his deconstructive phenomenology provides the conceptual scaffold for my own account of apophatic embodiment, while his reflections on incarnation, touch, exposition, sense, writing, and art cohere the conceptual thread of individual chapters. Ultimately, Nancy allows me to rethink the body as the singular and exposed condition of immensurable relation, where bodily sense unfolds as a mode of un/knowing that is experientially manifold and challenges traditional structures of propositional knowledge. From this position, I argue that the body is not merely an object of apophatic interpretation, but an apophatic phenomenon in its own right: one that becomes most legible when embodied knowledge is forced to turn back on itself and address the limits of its own recognition.

My supervisory team includes Dr Andrew Hass (Stirling), Professor Angus Vine (Stirling), and Professor Heather Walton (Glasgow).

Alongside Dr Hass, ( as well as Dr Alison Jasper, Dr Fiona Darroch, and Dr Lois MacFarlane), I am a member of the organising committee for the 22nd ISRLC conference "Dis-ruptures" (2026): https://www.isrlc.org/isrlc-conference.

Fellowships & Scholarships:

Holstein Dissertation Fellowship, University of California, Riverside (2021-2022); Arts & Humanities Research Council Full Doctoral Studentship, Scottish Graduate School of Arts & Humanities (PT, 2020-2026); Postgraduate Merit Scholarship, University of Stirling (2017); RUK Merit Student Scholarship, University of Stirling (2013-2017)

Grants & Awards:

St Luke's College Foundation Personal Award (2025); Santander Universities Brighter Future Award (2025); AHRC Research and Training Support Grant (2025); Foundation for Women Graduates Grant (2024); AHRC Research and Training Support Grants (x2, 2024); Stirling Educational Trust Grant (2024); Scottish Graduate School of Arts & Humanities Engagement Fund (2022); Scottish Graduate School of Arts & Humanities Engagement Fund (2021); University of Stirling, Murray MacBeath Award (2017);

Conference Organisation:

International Society for Religion, Literature, and Culture Conference, “Dis-ruptures”, University of Stirling (upcoming, 2026); Faculty of Arts & Humanities Employability Team, “Take the Leap: Undergraduate Conference”, University of Stirling (2024); Faculty of Arts & Humanities Employability Team, “The Scottish Festival of Political Communication”, University of Stirling (2023); Faculty of Arts & Humanities Employability Team, “Mission Employable: Undergraduate Conference”, University of Stirling (2023); Faculty of Arts & Humanities Postgraduate Research Conference, “Gender”, University of Stirling (2018)

Conference Participation:

History of the Womb: Uterine Imaginaries Workshop, Princeton University, roundtable speaker, (upcoming, 2025); American Academy of Comparative Literature, presenter, online (2025); International Society for Religion, Language, and Culture, presenter, Aarhus University (2024); Critical Research on Religion, presenter & moderator, Chinese University of Hong Kong (2024); Queer and Trans Studies in Religion, presenter, University of California, Riverside (2024); Literature & Languages Research Seminar, presenter, University of Stirling (2023); Trans Embodiment 1400-1700, presenter, University of York (2023); Postgraduate Gender Research Network, presenter, University of Strathclyde (2023); Critical Research on Religion, presenter, Queen’s University Belfast (2022); Scottish Graduate School of Arts & Humanities Second Year Symposium, presenter, University of Strathclyde (2022); Queer and Trans Studies in Religion, presenter & moderator, University of California, Riverside (2022); 41st Implicit Religion Conference, presenter, Sarum College (2016)

My research interests include theology & religion (particularly apophaticism, theopoetics, and affective piety), hermeneutics, Renaissance drama and literature, metaphysical poetry, medical humanities (premodern-and-early modern medicine, especially), queer theory, feminist & gender theory, trans studies, literary criticism, and continental philosophy (with particular in Jean-Luc Nancy).

I have taught across a range of courses both at the University of Stirling and the University of Glasgow.

University of Glasgow:

Guest Lecturer (2025), ENGLIT1012: Fantastic Texts and Where to Find Them: Approaching Fantasy Literature; Seminar Tutor (2025), ENGLIT1012: Fantastic Texts and Where to Find Them: Approaching Fantasy Literature; Graduate Teaching Assistant (2024-), ENG1A: Poetry & Poetics; ENG2A: Writing Ecologies; ENG2B: Writing the Body; COMPLIT 1A: Heroic Men; COMPLIT 1B: Heroic Women.

University of Stirling:

Module Designer, Convenor & Lecturer, The University of Stirling International Summer School (2025), ISSU9MH: Literature & the Body 1500-1900;

Guest Lecturer (2024), ENG9GE: Shakespeare & Contemporary Theatre;

Tutor with Assessment Feedback (2022-2024), RELU9A2: Religion, Colonialism, and Nationalism ; RELU913: Religion and Culture: Problems of Representation;

Faculty of Arts & Humanities Employability Tutor (2022-2024), ARTU9W4: Putting Arts and Humanities to Work.

Workshops, mentorship, learning activities, events, and guest speaker roles:

Student Mentorship: EDI Mentor for PhD applicants facing structural barriers in higher education (2023-2025), The Scottish Graduate School of Arts & Humanities.

Other Guest Speaker Roles: "PGR Induction" (2024), Faculty of Arts & Humanities, University of Stirling; "Critical Religion and the Apophatic Body" (online, 2024), The Global Network of Rainbow Catholics’ Contemplative Spiritual Formation Committee; "Doing the PhD Part-time" (2024), The Scottish Graduate School of Arts & Humanities Summer School, The Advanced Research Centre, University of Glasgow; "Taking care of yourself during the PhD" (online, 2021), Institute of Advanced Studies, University of Stirling.

Events & Workshops:

“Supporting Neurodivergent PGRs: A Collaborative Workshop”(2025) The Scottish Graduate School of Arts & Humanities, University of Stirling; “Thinking of University? Critical Religion at Stirling”(2024), Alloa Academy; “PhunDing your PhD” (2024), FAH, University of Stirling; “How to Apply for a Masters” (2024) FAH, University of Stirling; “Neurodiversity & Disability Rights in Employment” (various, 2023-2024), FAH, University of Stirling; “Apophatic Theology: finding hope during Covid 19” (online, 2020), Learning Network for the Methodist Church in Scotland; “Queerying Christianity” (2019), Stirling Methodist Church.

Other HEI Roles:

PGR consultant for GNDPP09: Genders and Sexualities in the Global North, FAH, University of Stirling (2024); Postgraduate Research Officer FAH, The University of Stirling Students' Union (2023-2024); Doctoral Representative , Theology, Divinity & Religious Studies Catalyst, The Scottish Graduate School of Arts & Humanities (2021-2023); Qualitative Data Researche, Recognising Achievements in Teaching Excellence (R.A.T.E), The University of Stirling Students’ Union (2017-2018).