Supporting Student Wellbeing in Higher Education: Why & How

This post reflects on the issues surrounding supporting students’ wellbeing, especially academic workload, the unequal division of emotional labour, and the lack of appropriate training for those involved in pastoral care. It also offers five main strategies that can help support your students’ wellbeing and provide good pastoral care.

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What Is Literature?

This is the introductory lecture for my Literary & Cultural Theory module. It introduces students to some of the questions theory can raise in relation to literature and its purpose as well as introducing some basic aspects of liberal humanism, and the module structure.

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[Commentary] The Widow & the Law: A Brief History of Widows’ Pensions in Britain

At a time when we remember the First World War, its victims, and its survivors, it seems apt for me to share some of the research I’ve been doing on the literary and cultural history of the widow in Britain, and particularly on how the state’s support and the economic conditions of widowed women has changed in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and reflects both Britain’s development in terms of gender equality as well as the emergence of the welfare state.

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Postmodernism

This is an introductory lecture to postmodernist theory, which forms the last critical lens we examine in this second-year course on literary and culture theory. This post contains both the Prezi and the lecture handout I’ve designed for this session.

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The Blank Page: Some Writing Strategies

This post is dedicated to the intimidating blank space that is the first page of the yet untitled document which, at some point in time, is supposed to contain a well-argued, thoroughly researched, and original argument to stun your expecting reader. I’ve never been one of those people who is blessed with the ability to sit down, create […]

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PhD Picnics: Food for Thought

PhD Picnics is an initiative which encourages exchange between postgraduate students and research staff to provide a supportive, stimulating postgraduate culture and adequate academic skills training and development.

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Wheels & Trainers: Sport & Academic Work-Life Balance

I think that, even in Britain, it’s now fair to say that it’s summer! And with the summer comes my usually busiest and best training and exercise period, not just because of the weather but also because I spend less time on commuting and being in the classroom. There are four main types of exercise […]

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