Research Areas
- British Literature (C19-21), Scottish literature, nineteenth-century periodicals
- environmental & energy humanities, animal studies
- border studies, critical infrastructure studies
- new formalism and postcritical reading practices
Ongoing Projects
Energy Infrastructures in the Nineteenth-Century Periodical Press (Post-Doc / Habilitation)
This project explores how ideas about energy infrastructures were constructed, circulated and debated in the Anglophone periodical press of the nineteenth century. Through a reading of the mass medium of the periodical press, I examine the role literary and cultural production play in mediating energy transition and reflecting on the process through which fossil fuels have come to form the energetic and ideational infrastructure of our lives in the West: from institutions, political systems and global networks to cultural practices, social formations and literary forms. I posit that the periodical press of the nineteenth century played a central role in the creation of systems and epistemologies of energy that continue to structure our understanding of and relationship with energy today. In particular, I am interested in the affordances of the periodical as a miscellaneous literary form for creating and negotiating energy imaginaries, the connections between energy infrastructures and the British Empire, and how understanding these imaginaries and connections may help us grapple with our relationship with energy today. You can find out more about the project here.
Literature and Medicine in Nineteenth-Century Literature
Anne Korfmacher and I are organising a free online workshop on Literature and Medicine in Nineteenth-Century Literature for the DACH Victorianists taking place on 5 December 2025.
You can download the Call for Papers here (deadline 30 September):
Networks
I’m currently active in the following roles and associations:
- Acting Publicity Officer and Membership Secretary at the British Association for Contemporary Literary Studies (BACLS)
- Assistant Editor at Green Letters
- Associated Member of the Research Network “Energy and Literature”
I’m an active member in the following associations: BACLS, ASLE-UKI, BAVS, DACH Victorianists, RSVP, German Association for English Studies
Previous Projects
Thinking Through Scotland: Scottish Literature, Borders and the Environmental Imagination
Based on research conducted for my PhD, my monograph Scottish Literature, Borders and the Environmental Imagination published Open Access with Bloomsbury examines a range of literary texts from the nineteenth century to the present day. It proposes that the creative possibilities of literature allow Scottish literary works to unpack key issues relating to borders and environmental concerns. It includes analyses of works by Walter Scott, Jules Verne, Nan Shepherd, Willa Muir, John Buchan, Alasdair Gray, Sarah Moss and offers a combination of theoretical discussions and in-depth case studies to show how writers reconfigure borders in connection with the Scottish environment.
The Uses of Form: Theory – Methodology – Pedagogy
Together with Anne Korfmacher I am organising a collaborative and interactive online workshop titled “The Uses of Form” which will take place on 1-2 July 2022. We’re interested in different perspectives on new formalism(s) and want to explore the theoretical, methodological and pedagogical uses of form understood as “an arrangement of elements—an ordering, patterning, or shaping” with aesthetic, material, political and social dimensions (Caroline Levine, 2015). You can read more about the workshop and find our CfP on the project website: https://theusesofform.wordpress.com/
Arcadiana Blog and Community
Together with Nikoleta Zampaki, I founded Arcadiana. Arcadiana started as a blog about the environment in literature and culture associated with the European Association for the Study of Literature, Culture and the Environment (EASLCE) and then developed into a communal platform for postgraduate and early career researchers to get together in collaboratively organised events, network and support each other. The Arcadiana network organised reading groups, online writing retreats, a weekly cowriting session on Twitter, and a creative writers forum.
Arcadiana was created in response to discussions in the 14th EASCLE Webinar “Ecocritics Going Public” with Scott Slovic. During the webinar we discussed the important contributions that can be made by humanities scholars to public conversations about environmental issues. Literary and cultural enquiries help us to navigate our world and are vital in understanding our relationship to the nonhuman world, and the crises that we are facing at the moment. The blog provides a platform for postgraduate and early career researchers from the environmental humanities to communicate their research and thoughts on current events and discourses in a publicly accessible manner.