I undertook my BA at the University of Southampton between 2008-2011. The University's growing interest and expertise in multi-disciplinary Maritime Studies encouraged me stay at the University in order to study for my MRes. After completing my MRes in 2012 I was awarded the Wolfson Foundation Postgraduate Scholarship for English Literature and began my PhD.
Research:
My PhD project is currently titled ‘The Sea and the Desert in the works of Cormac McCarthy and Tim Winton.' The project has emerged from a fascination with these two authors, particularly the many un-discussed similarities and affinities of their writing. In discussing these two writers together I hope to both bring a deeper understanding to these authors individually and to trans-pacific literary relations in general, and to the contrasting literary landscapes of the sea and the desert that both men explore so vividly - a pair of contrasting landscapes which have been little explored since Auden's The Enchafed Flood.
Supporting this research project is my background fascination with maritime literature, having written my undergraduate dissertation on ‘Death at Sea in the Poetry of Herman Melville and Derek Walcott', and my MRes thesis on the role of the ocean in the poetry of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Herman Melville, and Walt Whitman.
This range of interests led to me becoming a founding member and one of three co-chairs of the Southampton Marine and Maritime Postgraduate Group with whom I organised the 2014 colloquium ‘Sea Lines of Communication’ and was an editor for the resulting book of the same title.