Overview
I completed my BA in English Literature (2013-2016) and my MA in English Literature (2016-2017) at Cardiff University. I began my PhD at Cardiff University in 2018. My research interests include femininity and popular culture, girlhood studies, visual culture, and contemporary women's writing.
Research
Research interests
My main research focus is the contemporary femme fatale figure in twenty first century film, television, and women's writing.
Other interests include:
- Twenty-first century women's writing
- Popular culture
- Feminist theory
- Visual culture
- Gender studies
- Women in horror
Thesis
The Girl That Gazes Back: Looking at the Contemporary Femme Fatale
My research project focuses on the femme fatale figure in contemporary women’s writing, film, and television. Narratives featuring fatal femininity are proliferating within our current cultural moment, from Killing Eve’s (2018-2020) evocative antagonist ‘Villanelle’ to the bad girls simmering with rage in Robin Wasserman’s Girls on Fire (2016). However, there has been little critical focus on the contemporary fatale figure, and less still on her movement between visual and literary texts. My research addresses this critical gap, assessing the extent to which twenty-first century constructions of the femme fatale might interact with contemporary feminist contexts.
Funding source
SWW-DTP (AHRC)
Supervisors
Publications
2022
- Couch, R. 2022. ‘Pragmatically bad’ women: Looking at the
contemporary femme fatale. PhD Thesis, Cardiff University.