About
Since my appointment to the English Department at Southampton in 2005, I have been closely associated with Chawton House Library in Chawton, near Alton. Chawton House is a centre for the study of the early women's writing, and I was seconded as Executive Director from 2014-January 2019.
Research
Research groups
Research interests
- Research interests Eighteenth-century literature and culture
- Translation and reception history
- The cross-channel migration of ideas in the period 1780-1830.
- European women writers and readers.
- Jane Austen and contemporary literature and culture,
Current research
My current book project links my long-standing research interests, and examines British women writers and translation in the 1750-1830 period. My work on this project has been funded by the Bosack Kruger Foundation. From May 2019 to May 2020, I was funded by the Leverhulme Trust, via their fellowship programme.
Research projects
Completed projects
Publications
Teaching
My teaching is informed by my research. Alongside teaching British literature of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, I enjoy teaching French literature in translation, and thinking more broadly about the contemporary reception of texts, and eighteenth and nineteenth-century canon formation.
With my colleague Dr Kim Simpson, I designed a popular Futurelearn online course focussing on Jane Austen: Jane Austen: Myth, Reality and Global Celebrity.
This course continues to run via the Futurelearn platform.
My current PhD students work on projects relating to women's writing and lives in the long eighteenth century, on coverture in the period, and on the cross-channel debate on education. I have also examined PhD theses on Austen and contemporary culture, on Romantic-period cosmetics, on Helen Maria Williams and translation and on salon culture more broadly. I would be happy to supervise projects on any aspect of my research specialisms.
External roles and responsibilities
Biography
I am an Associate Professor in English, and Head of Admissions for the Department.
I enjoy hearing from prospective students, so please do get in touch if I can help answer questions about studying English here.
Before arriving in Southampton in 2005, I studied French and English at the University of Glasgow. My graduate work at the University of Oxford was funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, and by a Snell Exhibition at Balliol College.
I have taught at several Oxford colleges, and at the Université Paris XII.