University of Bristol

Graduate Student, English

PhD student and Associate Lecturer

Thesis Title: Friendship and Last Man Literature 1806-1830

About

I am working on a PhD on the concept of the 'Last Man' in literature published during the first three decades of the nineteenth century.

After graduating with a degree in English Language and Literature from Oxford University (St. Hilda's College) in 2006, I went on to take my MA, for which I was awarded a Distinction, at Bristol University. I have remained at Bristol, where I am an Arts and Humanities Research Council award holder, for my doctoral research.

In addition to Romantic 'Last Men', my research interests include wider ideas of apocalypse and millennium in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century English literature; Mary Shelley, particularly in the context of her relationship with Jane Williams; friendship in Romantic literature; and Gothic fiction.


Publications:

Articles
• '"The till now unseen object of my mad idolatry": The presence of Jane Williams in Mary Shelley’s The Last Man’, forthcoming in 'Romanticism'

Contributions to books
• 'Percy Bysshe Shelley', 'Psychical Investigation', and 'Suburban Gothic', articles in 'The Blackwell Encyclopedia of the Gothic', ed. by William Hughes, David Punter, and Andrew Smith (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012) (forthcoming)

Reviews
• 'Ann R. Hawkins, ed., Romantic Women Writers Reviewed', 'Romanticism' (forthcoming)
• 'Richard Lansdown, The Cambridge Introduction to Byron', 'The Byron Journal' (forthcoming)
• 'Jacqueline M. Labbe, Writing Romanticism: Charlotte Smith and William Wordsworth, 1784-1807’, 'La Questione Romantica' (forthcoming)
• ‘Peter W. Graham, Jane Austen and Charles Darwin: Naturalists and Novelists’, 'The Byron Journal', 40.1 (2012: July), 76-78 (forthcoming)
• ‘Beth Lau, ed., Fellow Romantics: Male and Female British Writers, 1790-1835’, 'The British Association for Romantic Studies Bulletin and Review', 39 (2011: December), 35-36
• I have been a regular contributor to the Romanticism section of the Routledge Annotated Bibliography of English Studies (Routledge ABES) for the past two years, specialising in writing critical annotations of books and articles concerning the works of the Shelley Circle, the Gothic, and female Romantic writers. I have had ten reviews published to date, with another four forthcoming.


Teaching:

Associate Lecturer, Oxford Brookes University (January 2012 - present)
• I teach the Romantic Literature module (seminar teaching and lecturing).

Part-time Tutor, University of Bristol (October 2010 - January 2012)
• I have designed and taught courses for Literature 3 (1700-1830), Critical Issues, and Contemporary Literature (1940-present day).


Research papers:

• 'The Last Man and Romantic Archaeology’ (to be given at the Wordsworth Summer Conference, Grasmere, August 2012)
• '“In every street is solitude”: The deserted city in Romantic Last Man literature' (to be given at University of Cambridge, 'Imagined Civities' Conference, June 2012)
• 'The Case of “Sir Fretful Plagiary”: The Problem of Influence in Romantic Last Man Literature' (to be given at the ‘Romantic Connections’ Conference, held by The British Association for Romantic Studies, June 2012)
• ‘The battle of the Last Men: End-of-the-world poems by Lord Byron and Thomas Campbell’ (University of Bristol,  Departmental seminar, March 2012)
• ‘“Which of the Last Men?” Satirical approaches to the Last Man theme in Romantic literature’ (University of Bristol, Departmental seminar, March 2011)
• ‘The presence of Jane Williams in Mary Shelley’s The Last Man’ (University of Bristol, Departmental seminar, May 2010)
• ‘A biographical re-reading of Mary Shelley’s The Last Man’ (University of Oxford, Romantic Graduate Forum, March 2010)
• ‘Dreams and visions in Romantic Last Man literature’ (University of Bristol, Graduate seminar series, August 2009)


Academic Administration:
• Co-convenor, 'Romanticism and Secrets' Conference, Centre for Romantic Studies at the University of Bristol, 2 May 2012

Contact Information