As a researcher I specialise in the interdisciplinary areas of Utopian Studies, sf and modernisms. My book, Dystopian Fiction and Political Thought: Narratives of World Politics (Routledge, 2019) examines dystopian fiction from the first half of the twentieth century. My current work focuses on questions about boundaries and borderlands, spatialisation, and the temporalities of speculative fiction in the twentieth and twenty-first century.
I joined York St John University as Lecturer in English Literature in 2015 and was promoted to Senior Lecturer in 2019. I hold a BA (Hons) in History and Politics (Birmingham, 2006), an MA in Cultural and Intellectual History (QMUL, 2007) and completed my PhD on mid-twentieth century dystopian fiction in the English Studies Department, Durham University (2012). My teaching practice at York St John has included literary and critical theory, experimental writing, the post-human turn and employability modules, in addition to those with a period and genre-based focus.
I began teaching at Durham University in 2008. Prior to joining York St John, I also taught at Newcastle University, where I was Research Associate from 2012 to 2015. During this period some of my work was awarded funding by the Leverhulme Trust and the AHRC. In summer 2015 I was Visiting Scholar at Concordia University, Montreal. I served as Hon. Treasurer of the Utopian Studies Society 2013 to 2019.
I welcome enquiries from potential research students with interests in any of my research and teaching specialisms.
Courses that I teach:
- LIT4004M Intro to Literary Studies II
- 2EN450 Literary Theory
- 2EN510 Literature at Work
- 2EN601 SF for Survival
- 3EN601 The Experimental Century
- LIT7001M Theorising the Contemporary
- LIT7004M World, Globe, Literature
- LIT7005M Speculative Bodies
