Made from armed forces shirts by over ninety war widows and their family members, this beautiful and moving piece of art tells many individual stories of love, loss, and grief while also shining a light on the ongoing history of war widowhood in the UK.
On Sunday, 11 November 2018, after the two-minute silence at 11.00AM, you’ll be able to listen to a feature on women and war that I recorded for BBC Radio Scotland’s Sunday Morning with … . Presented by Ricky Ross, the feature is a conversation between Ricky, Christine Morgan, who’s son Marc was killed by a roadside bomb in Iraq in 2004, war widow Anne Blair, whose husband was killed in the Troubles in 1979, and me. It was a privilege to speak to Christine and Anne and relate their experiences to some of the stories and wider...
War Widows’ Stories captures the lives of war’s forgotten women past and present through oral history, participatory arts, public events, and archival research.
I’m thrilled to be able to announce that I have been awarded one of the Arts & Humanities Research Council (AHRC) Leadership Fellows grants.
I’m excited to announce that I’ve been selected for one of the British Academy’s Rising Star Engagement Awards (BARSEA). These awards are granted to “some of the most promising and talented academics in the UK” and “are designed to encourage wider engagement with the humanities and social sciences within and beyond academia”. With an application endorsed by British Academy Fellow and internationally renowned historian Professor Joanna Bourke, my award will fund the organisation of a series of five public in-conversation events about war widowhood in the UK in 2018. The British public commonly imagine war widows to be elderly women who...
This blog is about academia and me. It’s about academia and you. It’s about sharing my experiences of my profession, and about sharing knowledge and skills which are too often taken for granted. It’s about those academic voices which are either not heard at all, or are not heard enough. It’s about challenging dominant ideas of what academics should look like. It’s about redefining what it takes to be an academic and how academics are expected to present themselves, their lives, and their work. It’s about making ourselves and our profession simultaneously vulnerable and stronger, so that we can help change what makes us feel inadequate, ashamed, or unprofessional. So that we can help make academia more inclusive.
Researching your prospective employer is key to any good job application and interview. I’ve collated three key tips that will give you the edge over those who simply stick to departmental websites.
I’m really pleased to say that I’ve been awarded my first external grant since my PhD. It’s not exactly news anymore by now, but last semester was so busy that I just couldn’t find the time to record things as they were happening. I’ve spent a lot of time over the past few years thinking about two things in particular: how can I start working with people to whom my research on widowhood really matters; and what is my research and career strategy for the next few years. I regularly advise doctoral students and fellow early-career researchers that,...
I’m really pleased that my article about feminist history and mother-daughter relationships is out now in Feminist Theory and available to read for free as an “online first” publication. Below you can find the full reference for the print version of this piece, and the page on which you can access the full-text article.
Get the popcorn, and dim the lights … Ok, maybe not. But if you had 5 minutes to watch my BBC Arts film on deviant Victorian widows (and why they could be so dangerous!), I’d be very honoured and humbled. I had great fun making it, and am much more pleased with the result than I thought I would be, though that’s not difficult given I had envisioned a talking zombie walking through the V&A. Disclaimer: no one other than me is to blame for content, hair, and make-up. A big thanks goes to Chris – producer, cameraman, editor, and all...
On 11 November 2016, Mary Moreland and I launched the Heritage Lottery Funded project War Widows’ Stories live on Woman’s Hour. We were given eight star-struck minutes with BBC Radio 4’s Jenni Murray, and you can listen to the result below via BBC iPlayer. It’s needless to say I was so excited about being able to do this. It meant our project was given national coverage on Armistice Day, a time when the nation is focused on remembrance of the dead, but often forgets about our duty to take care of those who survive conflict, including veterans and...
I was invited to write this piece for the Times Higher Education blog, where it was originally published on 26 June 2016 under the title “‘I’m scared’: German academic in the UK on the Brexit vote”. You can read the original post here, and it is reproduced word for word, without alterations, below. I am an immigrant. Moving to the UK was a dream of mine ever since I can remember. England was, after all, home to bands like The Clash and The Vibrators, and this was as good a reason as any for a teenager to determine that her...
The handouts and presentations you find in this section of the blog were devised by me, and I’m happy for you to use and adapt them as you see fit, without crediting me. Of course, it would be great to know if you’ve used any of the materials collated here, and how – if at all – you have adapted them to suit your topic, group, or course. Teaching is about sharing ideas. We all use our experiences as undergraduate students when we devise our seminars and lectures, and many lecturers share their notes and exercises with junior staff....
I knew from the very early stages of my research that, for the Victorians, widows had a lot of tragic as well as comic potential. I don’t think, though, I was prepared to find quite so many widow-related jokes in the pages of periodicals, magazines, and newspapers. As their number increases by the day the more I browse and search, it only seems right to collate them here. So, ladies and gents, be prepared to cry with laughter, chuckle to your heart’s content, or shake your head in disbelief at these pitiful puns and witty lines on which you’re about to feast your eyes at your own peril.
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 …
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 browser
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.
These articles in Research Professional (11 June 2015) feature some statements by me on New Generation Thinkers, and an interview on my experience of being selected for the scheme. You need to be a subscriber to Research Professional to gain access to these pieces.
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 a good sense of humour, and relatively intelligent. I work in academia. I teach, train, write, blog, and give various presentations around the UK. Oh, and I suffer from panic disorder, anxiety, and depression. I am one of many. Yet, I spent a...
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 guests visit the previous evening, and that there just hadn’t been time. My teacher said that I needed to take a long, hard look at my priorities. What I couldn’t say was that one of those family guests had sexually abused me, and that...
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 to host a similar event for your postgraduates, or if you’d like to discuss a different kind of workshop or talk you’d like me to give, please get in touch with me here. Background What it takes to secure an academic job post-PhD...
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 this page. You can find some of my talks on social media in the “Talks” section of this website.
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 and to my first ever appearance on national radio. After completing the short online application in December 2014, I was notified in February this year that I was one of the sixty applicants who had been shortlisted and invited to a training and...
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
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.
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?
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.
I’m Senior Lecturer in English Literature & Cultural History at Liverpool John Moores University and a BBC New Generation Thinker. I specialise in literary and cultural histories of women, gender, and feminism in Britain from the nineteenth century to the present day, women’s writing, and widowhood. I also provide support, training, and development for postgraduate and early-career researchers.
The War Widows’ Quilt: A Short Film
Made from armed forces shirts by over ninety war widows and their family members, this beautiful and moving piece of art tells many individual stories of love, loss, and grief while also shining a light on the ongoing history of war widowhood in the UK.
War Widows’ Stories: Listen to the Voices of War’s Forgotten Women
War Widows’ Stories captures the lives of war’s forgotten women past and present through oral history, participatory arts, public events, and archival research.
AHRC Leadership Fellows Award for War Widows’ Stories
I’m thrilled to be able to announce that I have been awarded one of the Arts & Humanities Research Council (AHRC) Leadership Fellows grants.
3 Things You Should Do Before Your Academic Job Interview
Researching your prospective employer is key to any good job application and interview. I’ve collated three key tips that will give you the edge over those who simply stick to departmental websites.
This post is a brief reflection on how to deal with the fact that you might not be the only one working on “your” topic.
Some of the most common questions with which PhD researchers are concerned focus on how they should set their priorities during their doctoral studies. What else, and how much of it, should you do next to researching and writing your thesis? As so often, I can’t answer this for all PhD students in all disciplines, but I wanted to try and give you an overview of some useful starting points if you’re hoping to prepare yourself for the academic job market during your doctoral studies rather than after, particularly in the humanities and social sciences. So some of...
We Regret to Inform You: On Interview Feedback
Interview feedback is difficult to approach, both giving and receiving. As someone who has more often been on the receiving end, I’ve found directly helpful feedback to be the exception rather than the rule. So, this post is about how to interpret feedback which might not tell you as much as you want. For me, there are three phases to thinking about the interview after the event. 1. Be honest with yourself When you come out of the interview, after you’ve taken a few deep breaths / had a shower / got home and had a stiff...
The Twilight Zone: After the PhD, Before the Academic Job
You’re close to submitting your PhD, to passing your viva voce examination with flying colours, and to be awarded your doctorate. At various stages in these final months of your existence as a PhD student certain scary thoughts – of the practical kind – enter your mind repeatedly and persistently. When will my university email account be closed? Should I be emailing academic colleagues from my embarrassingly named non-institutional email account? How will I keep researching and writing without physical or online access to my university library and its resources? How will I stand a chance on the...
[Commentary] Thoughts, Fears, & Brexit
I was invited to write this piece for the Times Higher Education blog, where it was originally published on 26 June 2016 under the title “‘I’m scared’: German academic in the UK on the Brexit vote”. You can read the original post here, and it is reproduced word for word, without alterations, below. I am an immigrant. Moving to the UK was a dream of mine ever since I can remember. England was, after all, home to bands like The Clash and The Vibrators, and this was as good a reason as any for a teenager to determine that her...
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 …
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 my research on this topic. The final section required applicants to write a review of a recent play, film, or book unrelated to their research that could be read on air. I offered a discussion of Maxine Peake’s play “Beryl” (2014), something which relates to...
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 in my life that I’ve had to take sick leave for more than a day, and this, alongside my line manager’s kind encouragement to not come back until I was definitely better and pain-free, got me thinking. How many days had I spent...
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 supervisory relationships are, and what makes for a good supervisor. That’s not what this post is, however. Rather, it’s something of a precursor, prompted by a slideshow I found this morning that presents the findings of a study on what Phd students really...
