How Do I Look? When Fear Interferes
This week I got to be in my first ever film: a four-minute epic about Victorian widows, made for BBC Arts as part of the AHRC/ BBC Radio 3 New Generation Thinkers scheme …
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Women On Their Own: Widows in Britain, Now & Then
As part of my role as one of this year’s New Generation Thinkers, I’ve recorded an edition of BBC Radio 3’s The Essay! “Women on Their Own: Widows in Britain, Now & Then” will be broadcast on 11 November 2015 at 10.45PM, and you can listen anytime after this by visiting BBC iPlayer. Please upgrade your […]
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Big Issue in the North: New Generation Thinkers
If you live in the glorious North, make sure you grab a copy of the latest Big Issue in the North. It features interviews with BBC New Generation Thinkers Sandeep Parmar, Catherine Fletcher, and me.
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A Confession
I have struggled with mental health most of my adult life. There, I said it. I am a human being, one who has worked all of my life, gained two degrees, has lots of friends, and a good family. Looking in from the outside, I appear to be well-rounded, a tad eccentric, enthusiastic, caring, with […]
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Surviving in Silence: Child Sexual Abuse Survivors in Academia
I remember being a young teenager and hesitatingly explaining from my school desk why – uncharacteristically – I hadn’t produced any homework. It was my favourite lesson on a subject that held such fascination for me that it would later become the focus of my academic work. All I could say was that my family had had […]
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05/07/2017 “Preparing for the Academic Job Market” (University of Birmingham)
Last month I hosted a half-day workshop for PhD researchers at the University of Birmingham in which I discussed the best ways to prepare for the academic job market (without losing your mind, or not finishing your PhD). You can find the full advert for this workshop below as well here. If you would like […]
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10/02/2017 “Social Media for PhD Researchers” (University of Greenwich)
I’m thrilled to to be giving a two-hour workshop on social media to doctoral researchers at the University of Greenwich on 10 February 2017. If you’re interested in having me facilitate a similar training session for your colleagues or students, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with me via email, or by leaving a comment on […]
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[News] New Generation Thinkers 2015
It’s official: I’ve been lucky enough to have been selected as one of this year’s New Generation Thinkers by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council. And of course this wouldn’t be my blog if I didn’t share a few lines on the process that led to last week’s melodramatically long-embargoed announcement […]
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Free Thinking: New Generation Thinkers 2015 Launch at the Hay Festival
I’m very excited to say that I’ve recorded my first ever radio broadcast, and you’ll be able to listen to this edition of BBC Radio 3’s Free Thinking on Thursday, 28 May 2015 at 10PM. This edition of the programme introduces four of this year’s New Generation Thinkers, including me. Please upgrade your browser
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[Conference Paper] The Real Thing: Objects, Materiality, & Authenticity in Neo-Victorian Fiction
This is the Prezi for a paper I gave at the Northeast Modern Language Association (NeMLA) convention in Toronto in May 2015. It’s the beginnings of an article on the same topic that I hope to finish and submit for peer review this summer.
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The Cost of Mental Illness: Stigma & Bullying in Academia
An anonymous blogger shares their experiences of being discriminated against and bullied due to their mental health issues. Is mental illness nothing more than an inconvenient expense for university departments?
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[Events] Women Writing Pleasure
3 July 2015, Liverpool John Moores University. I’m pleased to say that I’m co-organising this conference with two of my department’s PhD students: Chloe Holland and Krystina Osborne. Take a look at this post if you’d like to know more about the conference.
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AHRC/ BBC Radio 3 New Generation Thinkers
I had been meaning to apply for the AHRC/ BBC Radio 3 New Generation Thinkers initiative for a couple of years now, and last December I finally decided to take the time and fill in the application form. I proposed a programme on the history of widows in Britain, and explained the wider relevance of […]
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Keep Calm & Take Time Off: Being Ill at Work
When you’re ill, do you keep calm and carry on, or do you keep calm and take time off? I’ve just come to the end of two weeks sick leave. Shingles seriously knocked me out, even though I noticed it and got anti-viral medication on the very first day the rash appeared. It was the first time […]
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[Commentary] “Widows Are Wonderful” (1917): A Musical Find from the First World War
While researching the introduction to my book on the widow in British literature and culture, I stumbled across a tune from the First World War which illustrates perfectly some of the attributes which have rendered the figure of the widowed woman a popular and loaded one here in Britain, not only since the Victorian period […]
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A Beautiful Mind
An anonymous contributors reflects on their experiences of schizophrenia during their PhD and their nevertheless successful journey to a permanent academic job.
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Being a Good PhD Supervisor: A Fine Art or Plain & Simple?
I’ve been thinking for a while about writing a post on my relatively quick transition from PhD student to PhD supervisor, mainly to reflect on what is important to me regarding my new responsibilities and based on my own and my peers’ experiences, but also to think more generally about what the common problems in […]
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