Members and affiliated projects

Generations are talked about constantly in the media, but what were generational dynamics like before the so-called Baby-Boomers? And how can this help us envisage alternatives to our current narratives of generational conflict and crisis? 

This project, funded by the AHRC, explores provincial fiction and what it can tell us about ideas of ‘Middle England’. Fellowships and awards from UKRI Arts and Humanities Research Council have enabled her to co-create an innovative immersive reimagining of George Eliot’s novel Middlemarch, staged in four locations around Coventry Cathedral close during its year as City of Culture (2021-22) with partner Dash Arts. Find out more on the project blog.

This project explores how the materials of books, manuscripts, periodicals, pamphlets and other written media across the US, the Carribbean and Britain, c. 1750-1900 draw upon natural resources, index environmental processes, and record traces of more-than-human nature: animals, plants, water, climate. How was the book as an environmental and ecological object entangled with the extractive practices of plantations, slavery, and settler-colonials in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries? And how did authors address these entanglements in material and literary texts that combined the nature in books with emerging and traditional knowledges of the natural world?

Funded by an AHRC Standard Grant (2016-2019), Professor Hamlett’s current research looks at the changing position of animals in the home, in relation to broader shifts in family life, including transformations in size, relationships, intimacy, housing and living conditions that took place in the nineteenth century. For more information about the project, see: https://pethistories.wordpress.com/

First and Last Things: Family Archiving in Victorian Britain
In Victorian England, family archiving became a mass practice engaged in by people at all social levels, creating a vast archive of albums and photos, scrapbooks, letters and ephemera. This project explores how family archiving was shaped by industrial culture – and how new products and technologies were invested with emotional significance as family life was ruptured by urbanisation.

This project examines the place of animals in the mass migrations of Britons to the Anglo colonies during the period 1830-1910. Consumed by humans as meat, data, clothing, and oil, animals provided an economic motivation for colonial settlement and a labour force to build its infrastructures. Drawing on theoretical work in animal studies, Indigenous studies, and critical race studies, my book makes the case that animal signs and substances also advanced the conceptual tactics of nineteenth-century settler colonialism, with its distinct aim to occupy and control indigenous territory. Animal Material identifies modes of governance that emerge from cross-species encounters in colonial spaces and charts their development into settler logics that operate within and beyond the original site of encounter. The book examines work by Olive Schreiner, Charles Dickens, Anthony Trollope, Mary Shelley, Elizabeth Gaskell, H.G. Wells, amongst others.

This research focuses on the representations of Dissociative Identities in the writings of Emily Brontë, Robert Louis Stevenson, Gérard de Nerval, and Fyodor Dostoevsky. By working under the rubrics of both Critical Disability Studies and Mad Studies, this project aims to bridge the gap between psychiatric mis/understandings of Dissociative Being and its artistic representation across nineteenth-century European cultural production in order to develop a theory of Mad Gain – by which Dissociative Identities can feel confident and proud of who they are. 

Professor Tim Armstrong, English (Emeritus)
Modernism, American literature, literature and technology, the body (including such areas as sexology, bodily reform, cinema, and sound); and the poetry of Thomas Hardy.

Professor Jacky Bratton, Drama and Theatre
Research ranges widely across the history of theatre and culture in Britain in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

Professor Greg Claeys, History (Emeritus)
Social and political reform movements from the 1790s to the early 20th century, with a special focus upon utopianism and early socialism.

Professor Felix Driver, Geography
The history of geography, empire and visual cultures of exploration and travel.

Dr Vicky Greenaway, English
The interconnections of literature and the visual arts in the nineteenth century generally, with an additional interest in the relationship of poetry and painting in Pre-Raphaelite and Aesthetic poetry.

Professor Robert Hampson, English (Emeritus)
Modernism, notably on works on Joseph Conrad and Ford Madox Ford. In addition, he has had a long-term involvement with contemporary innovative poetry as editor, critic and practitioner.

Dr Helen Kingstone, English
Relationship between memory, narrative and history, in historical novels, history textbooks, utopian fiction, collective biography, panorama paintings, photography, oral history, and via generational thinking. 

Professor Ruth Livesey
Mobility and transport, social exploration in London, the forms of provincial fiction and sexual politics in the nineteenth century. 

Dr Katie McGettigan, English
Literatures and print-cultures of the Atlantic World, c. 1750-1900. She has published on the transatlantic circulation of print, transatlantic performance culture, and the novels and poetry of Herman Melville. Other interests include book history, environmental humanities, digital humanities, and popular culture studies. 

Professor Giuliana Pieri, Modern Languages
Books include The Influence of Pre-Raphaelitism on fin-de-siecle Italy: Art, Beauty and Culture. She undertook a research project on Anglo-Italian Artistic Relations in Victorian Britain.

Professor Adam Roberts, English
Teaching divides itself between literature and creative writing; a novelist himself, he has published widely on nineteenth century literature, culture and society with a focus on Victorian poetry

Professor Hannah Thompson, Modern Languages
Nineteenth-century French prose fiction with a particular interest in issues of gender, sexuality and identity construction. Currently involved in a number of projects around Disability Studies and French Culture.

Dr Briony Wickes, English
Critical animal studies, the environmental humanities, settlement and migration, histories of colonialism, energy futures, and theories of the novel. 

Professor Anne Varty, English (Emeritus)
Wide ranging interests in the development of Aestheticism, both in Britain and Europe; strong interests in nineteenth-century theatre, as well as work on aspects of contemporary literature and theatre. Her current nineteenth-century research focuses on fairy tales on the Victorian stage, and opium in British culture since 1800.

Heathcliff Newman
Postgraduate researcher in Department of Literatures, Languages and Cultures

Izzy Barrett-Lally
Postgraduate researcher in Department of Literatures, Languages and Cultures

Bonnie Liu
Postgraduate researcher in Department of English

Charlotte Bookham
Postgraduate researcher in Departments of History and English

Keith Alcorn (History) – The Empire in the Garden: Empire, Gardens and National Identity in 19th and 20th Century Britain. Supervisor: Dr Zoe Laidlaw.
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Edward Armston-Sheret – ‘Wild things in wild places’: British cultures of extreme exploration, 1851–1913.
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Sophie Bullen – The Deformed Transformed: Congenital deformity in nineteenth-century narratives.
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Jenny Cooke – Victorian pubs in nineteenth-century literature and culture. Supervisor: Dr Sophie Gilmartin.
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Lyndsay Galpin (History) – By His Own Hand: Suicide and Masculinity in Victorian Britain. Supervisor: Dr Alex Windscheffel. Second supervisor: Dr Ruth Livesey.
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Johanna Holmes – Strong women: Images of womanhood and middle-class women 1820–1880. Supervisor: Dr Alex Windscheffel.
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Katy Jackson – Cutlery in Victorian Literature. Co-supervisor: Professor Juliet John. Adviser: Dr Jane Hamlett.
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Lee Jackson – ‘Dickensland’. Supervisor: Professor Juliet John.
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Michaela Jones (History) – Christiana Herringham and the art collection of Royal Holloway and Bedford New College. Supervisors: Dr Stella Moss and Dr Laura MacCulloch.
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Tim Moore (English) – Adolescence, Anxiety and Loneliness in the British Novel, 1770–1850. Supervisor: Dr Ruth Livesey.
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Gursimran Oberoi (external affiliate) – Global Watts: Allegories for All 1880–1980, with the Watts Gallery and the University of Surrey. Co-supervisors: Dr Vicky Greenaway (RHUL); Dr Constance Bantman (University of Surrey); Professor Patricia Pulham (University of Surrey); Dr Nicholas Tromans (Watts Gallery).
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Anna Price – Representations of rowing in the long nineteenth-century literary and visual arts, Departments of English and History. Supervisors: Dr Sophie Gilmartin and Dr Alex Windscheffel.
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Colette Ramuz – Dickens and Mouth Fetish: Identity, Desire and Consumption in Selected Works of Charles Dickens. Supervisor: Professor Juliet John. Advisor: Dr Ruth Livesey.
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Nat Reeve – Past and Pre-Raphaelite Present: Elizabeth Siddal’s Retelling of Inherited Stories.
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Emily Smith – Charles Dickens and the Heritage Industry. Co-supervisors: Professor Juliet John; Dr Jane Hamlett.
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Adele Ward (English and Creative Writing, practice-based) – Novel on Victorian poet, novelist and essayist Mary E. Coleridge. Co-supervisor: Professor Robert Hampson.
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Rosalind White – Masculinity under the Microscope: Natural History’s Feminine Frame. Supervisor: Dr Ruth Livesey.
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Susan Woodall – Institutions for Fallen Women in Victorian England. Supervisor: Dr Jane Hamlett.
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Stuart Wrigley (History) – Johannes and Bertha Ronge: A Case Study in Anglo-German Relations. Supervisor: Dr Rudolf Muhs.
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Kelly Bushnell
19th Century Sea Narratives
Supervisor: Dr Sophie Gilmartin

Marie Cambefort (Modern Languages, Literatures and Cultures)
Neither Salon nor Goldfish Bowl: the Consumption of British Paintings at the Venice Biennale, 1895-1914
Supervisor: Dr Giuliana Pieri

Katie Carpenter(History)
The Kitchen as Scientific Space in England, 1870-1914
Supervisor: Dr Jane Hamlett

Michelle Clarabut
On the repatriation of Italian art after the Napoleonic period
Supervisor: Dr Guiliana Pieri

David Curran (Music)
A Study into the aesthetic outlook of the French composer Hector Berlioz
Co-Supervisor: Dr Mark Berry
Co-Supervisor: Professor Stephen Downes
Advisor: Professor David Charlton

Ghoncheh Dolatshahi (German and History)
The variations of Goethe's Orientalism and German-Iranian relations
Co-Supervisor: Professor W. Daniel Wilson
Co-Supervisor: Dr Ilker Evrim Binbas
Advisor: Dr Emily Jeremiah

Tamsin Evernden
Dickens and Character
Supervisor: Professor Juliet John 
Advisor: Dr Sophie Gilmartin

Alina Ghimpu-Hague
Equilibrium through Disorder: A Physiology of Nonsense Literature
Supervisor: Dr Sophie Gilmartin
Advisor: Professor Tim Armstrong

Krissie Glover (History)
Class, Gender and Property Crime in South East England 1861-1901
Supervisor: Dr Jane Hamlett
Advisor: Dr Graham Smith

Helen Goodman
Mad Men: Borderlines of Insanity, Masculinity and Emotion in Mid-Victorian Literature and Culture
Supervisor: Dr Ruth Livesey
Second Supervisor: Professor Juliet John

Michelle Gordon
British Colonial Violence in Perak, Sierra Leone and the Sudan
Supervisor: Professor Dan Stone

Vivi Lachs (History and Music)
Anglo-Jewish immigrant history through Yiddish texts in the public sphere, such as poetry in the press and music hall and theatre songs which reflect the British immigrant experience
Co-Supervisor: Professor David Cesarani
Co-Supervisor: Professor Rachel Beckles Willson

Benjamin Newman (Geography)
Geographies in dialogue: Print Culture at the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG), c. 1830-c. 1930
Co-Supervisor: Dr Innes M. Keighren
Co-Supervisor: Professor Klaus Dodds
Co-Supervisor: Dr Catherine Souch, Head of Research and Higher Education Division at the RGS-IBG

Jamie Nightingale (History)
The School Board for London and the training ship tradition: reading the Shaftesbury’s literal, metaphorical, and institutional spaces
Supervisor: Dr Jane Hamlett

Romany Regan (Drama/ Practice-based)
Audio Aalks for Abney Park Cemetery
Supervisor: Professor Helen Nicholson

Rebecca Swartz (History)
Ignorant and idle: Indigenous education in Natal and Western Australia, 1830-1875
Supervisor: Dr Zoe Laidlaw

Daniel Simpson (History)
The Royal Navy and Colonial Collecting in Australia, c. 1820-1870
Co-Supervisor: Dr Zoe Laidlaw
Co-Supervisor: Dr. Gaye Sculthorpe, British Museum

Zoe Thomas (History)
The Women's Guild of Arts: gender, spatiality and professional identity in London, c. 1880-1930
Supervisor: Dr Jane Hamlett

Brooke Weber (History)
Female emigration (particularly single women) to Australia in the latter half on the nineteenth century
Supervisor: Dr Zoe Laidlaw

The Centre for Victorian Studies at Royal Holloway is one of only 3 UK institutions affiliated to the University of California Dickens Project. In recent years the Department of English has supported a member of staff and the successful PhD candidate in our annual competition to attend the week-long Dickens Universe Summer School at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Participants follow an intensive programme of teaching and lectures alongside a diverse range of scholars and students, from high school students to renowned Ivy League Professors in this exceptional international exchange of ideas. Graduate students attending the Dickens Universe have found it an incredibly valuable and rewarding experience. The Dickens Project and its annual summer event, The Dickens Universe is available to watch here. 

The Centre is affiliated to the London Nineteenth Century Studies Seminar which is currently lead by Sophie Gilmartin (RHUL) and Matthew Ingelby (QMUL). The series meets three times a term on Saturdays at Senate House in Central London with the support of the University of London's Institute of English Studies. The London Nineteenth-Century Studies Seminar involves a large and influential community of senior scholars and postgraduates. Several members of the Centre for Victorian Studies at Royal Holloway are actively involved in the University-wide steering committee that plans these seminars and have co-organised themed programmes of events with the IES including The Nineteenth-Century on the Move (co-organisers Mark Turner, King's College; Ruth Livesey, Royal Holloway) October - December 2008 which brought together literary scholars and historical and cultural geographers to examine new thinking in relation to mobility and culture. All graduate students associated with the Centre for Victorian Studies are privileged to have easy access to the wide-range of events that take place at the Institute of English Studies in Senate House, Bloomsbury.

Pets and Family Life in England and Wales 1837-1939 is a major new research project, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council. It is the first large-scale historical study of the relationships between families and their cats, dogs and other companion animals in modern Britain. The project is run by Dr. Jane Hamlett from Royal Holloway, University of London and Professor Julie-Marie Strange from the University of Manchester, who are working with a team of researchers including Dr. Lesley Hoskins and Dr. Rebecca Preston.

Funded by a HARI Centre Fellowship, this is a digital archive (under development) of letters to the founder of Bedford College, Elizabeth Jesser Reid. Reid was connected to a wide network of social reformers, political radicals, and leading writers, artists and intellectuals of the mid-nineteenth century in Britain, Europe and the United States, and her correspondence demonstrates her networks and interests. The project is directed by Katie McGettigan and Annabel Valentine, and can be found at https://ejrletters.omeka.net/.

This project interrogates the stories of performing circus animals and their trainers during the nineteenth century. It proposes a new way of approaching Victorian history through a combined methodology of history and literature and a distinct chronology which deals with animal lifecycles. Using the perspective of the circus transforms our understanding of the era by comparing local and global histories within the movements of specific circuses over time. Circuses had considerable power in producing public perceptions of empire, race and gender through their acts, with animals and their trainers often setting the tone. Thus, this project offers unique findings for animal and entertainment histories, while redefining how we approach the long nineteenth century. Lions, horses and dogs may occupy radically different spaces in contemporary thought, but they were all central to circus success.