mauve perle tahat, phd
Autotheory, architecture, and the afterlives of feeling.
Mauve Perle Tahat studies haunted institutions, environmental grief, strange objects, public memory, and the politics of space. Her work moves between scholarship, storytelling, and lived experience, attending to what societies bury, abandon, pave over, or throw away. She is the author of Spatial Residue: Plastic Affects and Configurations of Place (Bloomsbury Academic, 2026) and Ecologies of Incarceration: Carceral Discard Studies in the Anthropocene (Lexington Books, 2024), and co-editor, with Kailey Tedesco, of Subtle Body Horror: An Anthology About Having a Body (North Meridian Press, 2026). She earned her PhD, with distinction, from Indiana University of Pennsylvania (2022), following degrees from Kutztown University of Pennsylvania (MA, 2015), Lehigh University (MEd, 2012), and Centenary University (BA, 2010). Her professional experience spans academic scholarship, classroom teaching, independent journals, and blue-collar work. After a decade in Northern Appalachia, she returned to Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley, where she lives with her spouse and two children and works in the service industry.
Reach out for appearances and interviews by emailing mauve.tahat at gmail dot com.
Spatial Residue: Plastic Affects and Configurations of Place (Bloomsbury Academic 2026) explores how places, whether abandoned malls, haunted swamps, or vintage video games, hold residues of history, feeling, and imagination. Mauve Perle Tahat traces how plastic, as both material and metaphor, shapes our environments and our inner lives, linking the persistence of pollution to the persistence of memory. The book moves across cultural terrains while grounding its analysis in real spaces. Combining autotheory, spatial critique, and cultural analysis, Spatial Residue uncovers how sites of ruin, spectacle, and play reveal deeper truths about survival, resilience, and belonging. It is a book about how we navigate the strange and often dissonant worlds we inherit, and how we might imagine alternative futures from their residues.
Ecologies of Incarceration: Carceral Discard Studies in the Anthropocene (Lexington Books/Bloomsbury Academic 2024) offers a compelling exploration of the intersections between carceral systems, environmental concerns, and political ideologies. This interdisciplinary work examines how prison literature and narrative witness reveal the complexities of our contemporary world, shedding light on the systemic issues that link environmental degradation with carceral practices. With a nuanced analysis of how these intertwined systems impact individuals and communities, drawing on diverse examples to illustrate the broader implications of these interactions, the text offers practical insights for activists and community builders while providing a guide for those seeking to understand and address the challenges of our time through collective action and critical engagement.
Mauve Perle Tahat and Kailey Tedesco serve as editors to this volume (North Meridian Press 2026) considering the many insidious lived realities of having a body. From transformation to kinship, this list of authors offer a multifaceted exploration on the nuances of embodiment happening within a global culture.