University of Chester

Visiting Lecturer / PhD Graduate, English

Gladstone Fellow

Thesis Title: Between Texts: The Resonant Fictions of Sarah Waters

About

Hi, I'm Louisa, and I'm currently a Writer at Large. Most obviously, I am adapting my thesis for (hopeful) publication, but I am also Research Fellow at Glastone's Library (www.gladstoneslibrary.org) and can be found blogging at Neo-Victorian Thoughts (www.neovictorianthoughts.wordpress.com).

As of 2011-12, I'm a Visiting Lecturer at the University of Chester and Associate Tutor at Edge Hill University - my dominant teaching area is literary and cultural theory. I also contribute to several other courses at Chester, including the MA in Nineteenth-Century Literature and Culture, a third year module in Women's Writing and Feminist Theory, and the second year critical theory programme.

My thesis focused on the relationship between neo-Victorian novels and contemporary queer theory.  In particular, my thesis focuses on the three neo-Victorian novels of Sarah Waters, and their relationship with the work of Judith Butler, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick and Terry Castle. The thesis defines a new sort of fiction: resonant fiction maintains a relationship with non-fictional texts that is distinct from intertextuality.

In addition to my main research interests, I am also interested in: representations of domestic space in twentieth-century fiction; the contemporary historical novel; and the work of George Orwell. 

I have recently published a book chapter on the figure of the child in queer families (2011). This joins a 2010 article on Waters's 'Tipping the Velvet' and Will Self's 'Dorian: an Imitation' and the process of neo-Victorian re-vision.

Please feel free to contact me if we work in similar fields; I'd love to hear from you!