Cardiff School of English Communication and Philosophy

PhD Research

Sensibility, Enlightenment and Romanticism in British Fiction 1800-1820
My thesis examines the impact of sensibility on the development of the novel in the late Romantic period. Countering the notion of the ‘crisis’ and ultimate failure of sentiment as a model for social cohesion in the 1790s, it considers the ways in which Enlightenment models of sympathy and sensibility influenced the formal transformation of the novel that took place in the early nineteenth century. In considering the role of Enlightenment moral sense philosophy in four major fictional sub-genres – the gothic, national, historical and moral-domestic – the thesis contends that changing attitudes towards Enlightenment models of selfhood can enable us to understand the fiction of the period within the wider cultural movement of Romanticism.

Supervisor: Dr Anthony Mandal, Dr Jane Moore

Academic Background

BA (Hons) English Literature, Cardiff University
MA English Literature, Cardiff University

Publications

‘Mary Julia Young: A Biographical and Bibliographical Study’, Romantic Textualities: Literature and Print Culture, 1780–1840, 18 (Summer 2008). Online: available at: <http://www.cf.ac.uk/encap/romtext/reports/rt18_n04.html>.

‘Review of Christopher C. Nagle, Sexuality and the Culture of Sensibility in the British Romantic Era  (New York/Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007)’, Romantic Textualities:  Literature and Print Culture, 1780–1840, (Forthcoming)

Edition with introduction: Mary Julia Young, Donalda; or, the Witches of Glenshiel [1805], Udolpho Press (forthcoming)

Conferences, symposia and seminars

Panel chair at Romantic Visual Cultures International Conference, Cardiff University, April 2009

‘Breaking ‘the great chain of society’: sympathy in the fiction of Ann Radcliffe and Charlotte Dacre’ at Romantic Circulations: BARS International Conference, Roehampton, July 2009

‘”Wrapt in self-oblivion”: William Godwin, Sympathy and Romantic Identity’, BARS Romantic Identities Conference, London, May 2011

‘Sympathy, Enlightenment and Romanticism in William Godwin’s Fiction’, BARS International Conference – Enlightenment, Romanticism, Nation, Glasgow, July 2011

Teaching

I have been a postgraduate tutor in English Literature 2006-present, providing seminar-based, small group teaching to Year 1 of the undergraduate programme and (from 2011) seminars for Erasmus students across Year 2 and 3 modules.

I am an associate member of Higher Education Academy.

Links

Reviews Editor, Romantic Textualities : a twice-yearly  journal committed to foregrounding innovative Romantic-studies research into bibliography, book history, intertextuality, and textual studies. http://www.romtext.cf.ac.uk/

Udolpho Press – Editors: http://www.udolphopress.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=6&Itemid=11&lang=en