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My academic background is in English Literature and Women’s and Gender History, and I have taught for the Open University since 2009. I have recently completed my PhD at the School of Area Studies, History, Politics and Literature, University of Portsmouth. My PhD thesis is a biography of Bessie Parkes Belloc (1829-1925), a writer and women’s rights activist.
My research interests are focused on women’s literary writing, particularly poetry, of the nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries; the history of feminism; life writing, particularly the theory and practice of writing biography, including feminist approaches. My journal article ‘“We who strive for the foundation of a principle”: feminism and suffrage in the biography of Bessie Parkes Belloc’ was published in the Women’s History Review in November 2020.
I currently teach on the Open University modules A233 The Novel and Beyond, A111 Discovering the Arts and Humanities, and A113 Revolutions. I have also taught on other Level 1 interdisciplinary Arts modules with the OU.
My teaching interests are in the pedagogy of teaching English Literature, particularly in online environments, and interdisciplinary teaching in the Humanities.