CamFest Speaker Spotlight: Dr Claire Hynes

Dr Claire Hynes is a Lecturer in Literature & Creative Writing, School of Literature, Drama and Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia. She is in conversation with the sociologist Professor Jason Arday in the session Race and society: Have we made any real progress since Black Lives Matter on 27th March, 8-9pm at the Cambridge Union.  

You have written about the lack of representation of black lecturers in higher education. Do you think things have improved much particularly since Black Lives Matter?
I’ve noticed a change for the better at my university. We’ve energised teaching in my School and Faculty by broadening reading lists and considering new voices and critical perspectives. I can’t speak for other universities though, and I don’t believe that we have more black lecturers since BLM – I think it will take some time! 

What impact did that lack of representation have on you?
I remember as an MA student a friend asked if I’d consider being an academic. I laughed and said ‘absolutely no way’. I saw no-one in my field who resembled me, and I thought working in academia was not for me.

I was lucky enough to have, as a longstanding friend, Professor Robert Beckford, who is a prominent black academic. Professor Beckford is the Director of the Institute of Climate and Social Justice at Winchester University and has always been hugely supportive. 

What was your experience at school? Did you feel encouraged in your interest in writing?
I benefited from fantastic role models from the Antiguan side of my family when I was growing up, and I was encouraged to read and write at home. I felt encouraged too at my local primary school in Birmingham, which happened to be a Jewish faith school. I remember winning a writing competition there. Everything changed when my family moved to a white suburban area near London. It was not an encouraging environment. 

Why did you decide to work in the media and what was it like working at The Voice? 
To address the disconnection between Black people’s lived experiences and the strange, sometimes warped, representations of those experiences. I was News Editor of The Voice in the 1990s at the age of just 23, which seems incredible now looking back. We had such a collective sense of purpose back then. We were committed to shaping a positive and distinctive Black British identity. 

How did you make the leap to teaching creative writing in academia? 
After working at the BBC as a TV documentary producer, I completed an MA in Creative Writing at UEA, and then a PhD. I got little bits of precarious teaching here and there, which led to more precarious teaching here and there, and finally through sheer persistence, a staff position. Some writers might consider teaching a convenient earner, but I do actually find it really rewarding. 

What kinds of creative writing projects have you worked on? 
I’ve been to Florida researching the life and writing of African-American writer Zora Neale Hurston and I’ve written about Hurston in connection to Virginia Woolf’s essay, A Room of 

One’s Own, among other projects. My projects - produced in between more-than-full-time academic work and parenting - have taken the form of short fiction, creative non-fiction, theatre monologues and essays. 

There has been a lot of talk about diversity since BLM, with diversity itself having a very broad interpretation. How much of this do you think is tickboxing? 
The problem with diversity is that it’s based on the idea that some individuals and groups are ‘different’ and must be brought into the mainstream. In order to move beyond ‘ tickboxing’, questions need to be asked about the fairness of systems and structures which treat some people as ‘normal’ and others as alien, and about our colonial legacy. 

Are you working on any creative project at the moment? 
I’m exploring the life of an enslaved young woman ancestor in Antigua known as Missy Williams, who ran away from a plantation to live in a cave. I’m interested in how she survived in the cave, and the intelligence and ingenuity she must have possessed. I want to know more about the incredible stories of black women through history which remain untold.  

*The BBC World Service documentary which follows Claire’s search for Missy is here: BBC World Service broadcast, ‘My Granny, The Slave’: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3ct43h3