Research Spotlight: Sharon Choe

Studying: PhD in English Literature (full-time)Supervisor: Prof. Jon MeeThesis title: ‘Deformed, Dismembered, Disembodied: Re-inventing the Body Politic in William Blake’Research Interests: William Blake, poetry, medical humanities, the body, disability theory, ‘Britishness’, eighteenth-century Northern antiquarianism, Old Norse reception, myth theory, 1790s. Thesis Overview My doctoral thesis addresses two specific parts of William Blake’s poetry: Blake’s use…

Research Spotlight: Cheng Li

Studying: PhD in History (full-time)Supervisor: Professor Miles TaylorThesis Title: Pursuing a noble dream of legal codification: Jeremy Bentham’s law reform strategies, 1808-1832Research Interest: British politics and reforms in the eighteenth century and nineteenth century; utilitarianism; Bentham studies; intellectual biography studies; the Age of Reform. Thesis Overview My thesis explores the strategies made by the British…

Research Spotlight: Caitlin Kitchener

Studying: PhD in Archaeology (full-time)Supervisor: Dr. Jon FinchThesis Title: ‘Unite and Be Free’: The Historical Archaeology of British Political Radicalism, c. 1815-1822. Research Interests: political radicalism; landscape; early modern material culture; queer theory; archaeological theory  Thesis Overview The post-Napoleonic period was one of lively political activity. The emerging working class protested against a parliamentary system which failed to represent them…

Research Spotlight: Kurt Baird

Studying: PhD in History (full-time)Supervisor: Dr Jasper HeinzenThesis Title: Fighting for the Habsburgs: Community, Patriotism and the Kaiserlich-königliche Armee during the Wars against France, 1792-1818.Research Interests: The Military Enlightenment, martial citizenship, war time experience, military culture, social militarisation, conscription and the effects of military processes and practices on gender, regional identity and dynastic loyalty in the Austrian Hereditary Lands. Thesis…

Research Spotlight: Elizabeth Potter

Studying: PhD in English and Related Literature (full-time)Supervisor: Prof. Jon MeeThesis Title: William Blake, Sir Joshua Reynolds, and Annotation Research Interests: Eighteenth-century literature and visual culture; history of the book; eighteenth-century British art; digital humanities; aesthetics; postcolonial theory. Thesis Overview Inside of William Blake’s copy of The Works of Sir Joshua Reynolds(1798) are extensive annotations; some contentious, others concurring, some poetic, others…

Research Spotlight: Lilian Tabois

Studying: PhD in English and Related Literature (full-time)Supervisor: Dr Emma MajorThesis Title: British Women's Travel Writing to Latin America and Historiography, 1820-1850Research Interests: Early nineteenth-century British literature; travel writing; historiography; transatlantic literary studies; women’s writing; the Age of Revolution Thesis Overview My thesis explores the relationship between travel writing, historiography, and revolution in the journals of British…

Research Spotlight: Millie Schurch

Studying: PhD in English and Related Literature (full-time)Supervisor: Dr Mary FaircloughThesis Title: Women, Empiricism, and Epistolarity, 1740-1810Research Interests: Eighteenth-century literature and culture; history of science; gender studies; letters; sociability Thesis Overview My thesis examines the relationship between epistolarity and empirical culture in the mid-late eighteenth century. I focus on female-authored epistolary writing, in the form of letters…