I have a BA (Hons) in English Language and Literature from Oxford University and an MA with Distinction and AHRC-funded PhD from the University of York. Before coming to Liverpool Hope in 2015, I worked firstly as a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Geneva, researching the early publication of Shakespeare (2008-10). I then moved to the University of St Andrews where I was MHRA Research Fellow in English Renaissance Translation (2010-11) and then a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow working on a research project on reading for pleasure in early modern England (2012-15).
My research specialisms are in early English and European popular prose fiction, particularly chivalric romance, the history of the book, the history of reading, translation, and health humanities.
I am the editor (with Helen Smith) of Renaissance Paratexts (Cambridge University Press, 2011; paperback, 2013), and (with Neil Rhodes and Gordon Kendal) of English Renaissance Translation Theory (MHRA, 2013); my research in Geneva led to Lukas Erne's Shakespeare and the Book Trade, 1594-1623 (Cambridge University Press, 2013). I've published a number of articles and book chapters on the early modern writer and translator, Anthony Munday, chivalric romance, and publishing and reading fiction in sixteenth-century England and Europe. I am Associate Editor of the MHRA Tudor and Stuart Translations series and I was a fellow of the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington DC in 2015-16.
Teaching Specialisms
Much of my teaching is on literature of the late Middle Ages and early modern period, with a particular focus on Shakespeare. I welcome the opportunities in our curriculum to teach across all literary periods, however, and have given lectures, seminars, and tutorials on texts from the classical period to the present day. I have greatly enjoyed developing undergraduate teaching on the history and theory of book design, publishing, and reading. These have incorporated working with historical rare books and manuscripts in our Special Collections, digital approaches to book history, and creative and practical elements including designing altered books and typesetting and printing on our replica historical printing press. I have also been developing my interest early popular literature into a final-year option on the long history of fantasy literature from the Middle Ages to the present day. At Masters level, I teach a course on early modern book history which incorporates my particular specialisms in material culture and popular literacies. I have supervised a PhD on the representation of the Tudors in popular culture and am currently supervising a PhD on elite mother and widows 1560-1640.
I welcome proposals for PhD study on early modern literature and culture, particularly on prose fiction, translation and transnational studies, the history of book, and material culture and reading.
School/Faculty Roles
I am a Senior Academic Advisor for the School of Humanities offering support and guidance to students who are facing challenges or wish to make changes in their studies. I have also been the first-year coordinator for the English Literature programme for several years and particularly enjoy the role of welcoming new students each year as they embark on their studies. I am a member of the university's Library Steering Group.
Recent Publications and Projects
Publications since 2018:
'"such maner of stuff": Translating material London in Anthony Munday's Palmerin of England' in Iberian Chivalric Romance: Translations and Cultural Transmission in Early Modern England, ed. Leticia Alvarez-Recio (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2021), pp. 95-112.
'Anthony Munday (1560-1633)' (trans. Alejandra Ortiz-Salamovich) in Los Libros de Caballerias en Inglaterra 1578-1700, ed. Jordi Sanchez-Marti (Salamanca: University of Salamanca Press, 2020), pp. 193-97.
'Dedication' in New Literary History, 50 (2019), Special Issue: 'In Brief' ed. Bruce Holsinger and Irina Dumitrescu, pp. 483-86.
Recent and Current Projects:
Critical Edition of Anthony Munday's translation of Palmerin of England (under contract with the MHRA Tudor and Stuart Translations series): I am currently completing this major edition which will be the first modern critical edition of the Europe-wide early modern bestseller that was an literary influence early modern and Romantic writers.
A study of readers' annotations in Anthony Munday's translation of Amadis de Gaule, one of the most famous works of popular fiction of the early modern period.
From 2017-20, I was a member of an international research project funded by the Spanish government: 'The Spanish Romance of Chivalry in English Translation: Anthony Munday and Early Modern Culture in Europe'. This led to a series of conferences and publications and, as part of the project, I organised a seminar on 'Iberian Romance and its English Afterlives' at the Shakespeare Association of America conference in Washington DC in 2019.
In November 2019, I organised an event for the national Being Human Festival at Liverpool Hope's Creative Campus. The event, called 'Hidden Histories: Women and Books', examined the ways in which women's histories of book-making, collecting, ownership, and reading had been historically neglected. The event showcased books and manuscripts from our Special Collections and the stories they can tell about women's interactions with them. I collaborated with local artists, bookbinders, and letterpress printers on the interactive workshops for the event.