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GREAT EXPECTATIONS: RESEARCHERS IN PROGRESS CONFERENCE
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES
Nik Adzrieman Bin ABDUL RAMAN is a first year PhD student at the University of
Hull. He is studying in the Media, Culture and Society section of the Humanities
Department. He graduated with a BA from the National University of Malaysia and an MA
in Communication Studies from the University of Malaya. For his PhD research, he is
writing a dissertation on ‘Electronic Propinquity in Healthcare Promotion: A Malaysian
Case Study.’ His other research interests also include the the new media, media and
development, media society, media and health, and development of communication.
Rebecca AMOS is currently studying for an MA in Nineteenth Century Studies at the
University of Hull, where she also completed her BA (Hons) in 2008. Her primary research
interest is in the field of Western Orientalism, utilizing an interdiciplinary approach of art
and literature. Her forthcoming dissertation explores the contested representations of
Turkish bathing.
Rebecca BAYNES is currently studying for an MA in Women, Gender, and Literature at
the University of Hull following a BA in English Literature and American Studies. Having
a strong interest in New Woman writing, in particular Mona Caird, she is currently writing
her dissertation about New Woman fiction and the concept of the maternal instinct.
M. A Kamal BILLAH, a civil servant from Bangladesh, is currently studying for an MA
in Gender and Development at the University of Hull. He is writing a dissertation on ‘Child
Marriage, Gender and Development Policy: An Analysis of the Paradox in the Context of
Bangladesh’. This dissertation explores issues of childhood, children’s rights,
discrimination and prejudice against girl-children across continents and paradoxes that arise
between all these issues and current Gender and Development discourse in relation to the
context of Bangladesh.
Naomi CROOK is currently taking an MA in Women, Gender and Literature following on
from graduating with a BA Hons. in English from the University of Hull. She is particularly
interested in gaze and touch politics and as such, she is exploring the relationship they have
with each other in literature and film for her MA dissertation.
Mark ELLIOT studied for his BA in English and MA in English Literary Research at the
University of Leicester, where his MA dissertation was a study on the ‘Illustration of
Gothic Literature’. Mark has continued this interest to PhD level, researching the
illustration of eighteenth and nineteenth-century gothic chapbooks. His main areas of
interest are in horror and Gothic literature and media. A strong interest in visual material as
well as in the formalistic and structuralist approaches to the study of various texts has
always driven these research interests.
Katie GRAY is currently studying for an MA in General English Literature. In 2007 she
achieved a BA in a joint degree of English and Philosophy at the University of Hull. Her
dissertation is focusing on the literature of Wilkie Collins with particular attention to his
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use of drugs and the unconscious. Her other fields of interest include Metaphysical fiction
and the poetry Philip Larkin.
Janine HATTER is currently studying on the MA in Nineteenth-Century Studies and is
writing a dissertation on ‘“Subverting the ‘Norm’”: Femininity, Masculinity and the CrossOver in the Novels of Mary Elizabeth Braddon’.
Ellie HAYES is studying part time for an MA in Nineteenth-Century Studies at Hull
University, having graduated in 2006 with a BA in English. She is particularly interested in
historicism and psychoanalysis, and in exploring gender theory and the evolution of
psychological science within Victorian literature and culture. Her dissertation aims to
explore the relationship between madness and masculinity in Sensation fiction.
Theresa JAMIESON is a first year PhD student at the University of Hull. She holds a
scholarship in Neo-Victorianism and is working on a thesis exploring motifs of female
incarceration in the Neo-Victorian novel. Other research interests include Victorian
literature, Gothic fiction and contemporary women’s writing.
Vasiliki KOULIOUMPI studied English Literature for a BA at the University of Hull and
is currently doing an MA in English there. She is particularly interested in classical themes
and allusions in 19th century as well as modern English literature.
Jon MATTHEWS is currently studying for an MA in Modern and Contemporary
Literature at the University of Hull following a BA in Philosophy, and is writing a
dissertation on the themes and methodologies found in the works of Howard Phillips
Lovecraft. Other research interests also include the use of folklore, mythology and the
occult in contemporary horror and science-fiction.
Nadine MULLER is a doctoral student at the University of Hull, where her research is
funded by an institutional 80th Anniversary Doctoral Scholarship in Neo-Victorianism. Her
thesis examines representations of gender and sexuality in twenty-first century neoVictorian fiction in the context of post- and third-wave feminisms, and her first journal
article, ‘Not My Mother’s Daughter: Matrilinealism, Third-Wave Feminisms & NeoVictorian Fiction’, is forthcoming in Neo-Victorian Studies in summer 2009. Nadine is an
executive committee member of the Feminist and Women’s Studies Association UK &
Ireland (FWSA) and a steering group member of the Postgraduate Contemporary Women’s
Writing Network (PG CWWN).
Norman MURPHY graduated from the University of Hull in 2007 with a BA in Politics
with History. He then went on to take an MA in Strategy and International Relations
graduating from the Politics Department in 2008. He is currently studying for a PhD in
Politics. His research topic is based on events which took place in the Western Desert
in 1941.
Allison NEAL: After spending a decade at the ‘University of Life’, Allison decided to
embrace a real challenge and embarked on an academic career. She graduated from the
University of Hull in 2008 and proceeded to undertake a Master’s degree in Women,
Gender and Literature. Her field of interest lies in the (de)construction of gender identity
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and particularly the figure of the transvestite, which is examined and scrutinised in her
Master’s dissertation entitled, ‘Hidden (A)genders: Female Cross-Dressing in 19th and early
20th Century Literature and Life’. She is female by birth, a feminist by choice, and feminine
by performance.
Yoana Fernanda NIETO VALDIVIESO is a Colombian journalist with an MA in
History. She is currently studying on the Erasmus Mundus Master’s Programme in
Women’s and Gender Studies. Since 2003 she has been working on research related to
Colombia’s Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration process from a gender
perspective.
Kayleigh OLIVER graduated from the University of Hull in 2008 and is currently doing a
Masters in Nineteenth-Century Studies at the same university. She is at present focusing
her studies on the Victorian ghost story genre, as well as on the science fiction of H.G.
Wells. As she has a long-standing interest in the cross-over between science and literature,
her MA dissertation is exploring the ideas of the mad scientist, as well as post-Darwinian
anxieties about the origins and stabilities of mankind as a species, in the Victorian science
fiction novel.
Danielle PAGE is currently studying for an MA in Modern and Contemporary Literature at
Hull University after graduating with a BA in English Literature in 2006, and is writing a
dissertation on ‘Performance and Artifice in the Life and Work of Joe Orton’. Her primary
research interests are in drama, specifically anti-establishment theatre of the 1960s, and
more generally representations of class and gender on the stage.
Thomas PATERSON is currently studying an MA in Nineteenth-Century Studies at the
University of Hull after graduating from the same university with a BA in English. He is
particularly interested in the Gothic and Sensation genres and his dissertation topic focuses
on nineteenth-century disease theories and how they ‘infected’ literature at the time.
Jenny PEARCE completed her Degree in English Literature at the University of Hull in
2008 and has remained at the University of Hull to undertake a Master’s Degree in
Nineteenth Century Studies. Her academic interests are predominantly travel writing and
the position of women in nineteenth century literature and culture. Her current research
focus is the governess travel narrative.
C.J. PENRITH decided to study literature after bartering his soul to Mephistopheles in a
Faustian pact for untold powers of academic analysis and expression, in exchange for his
immortal soul. This proved sufficient for an undergraduate degree in English and Creative
Writing at the University of Hull. Many module tutors were instrumental in helping him
hone the craft of writing while on the course, especially where believable villains were
concerned. He quickly developed an interest in gothic literature; unsurprising, amidst the
darkened, labyrinthine corridors and ancient black-bound tomes of the English department.
Pioneering such academic concepts as ‘Method Essay Writing’ and discovering medical
conditions such as ‘Page-Turner’s Torment’, he became an erstwhile explorer of the dense
forests of paper comprising the set texts of the MA programme in Modern and
Contemporary Literature. When relaxing, he enjoys spending time in the student milkbar
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with his droogs and a glass of moloko, and playing the violin or taking a seven-per-cent
solution of cocaine when not otherwise engaged on a case or essay.
Vanessa PRICE graduated from the University of Hull in 2000 with a BA in English. She
completed a P.G.C.E. in 2001 and took up a post teaching English at a secondary school in
the East Riding. In 2008 she returned to the University of Hull in order to study for an MA
in English Literature. Her research interests are in nineteenth century and contemporary
literature, and she is writing a dissertation on the relationship between women and food in
contemporary literature.
Hannah QUIGLEY is currently studying towards an MA in Modern and Contemporary
Literature, following her graduation from a BA in English Literature from the University of
Hull. She is writing a dissertation that explores the theme of racism that is prominent in
much of the work of Walter Mosley and how it affects the overall message of his fiction.
Her other research interests include the literary representations of the often marginalised
female gender, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century
Dr Ana María SÁNCHEZ-ARCE is a Lecturer in English at Sheffield Hallam University.
The underlying concern of her research is how texts are valued in the contemporary period.
She is particularly interested in intertextuality and the relationship between discourses of
identity and literary form. She is currently writing a monograph on the filmmaker Pedro
Almodóvar for Manchester University Press. She is also carrying out research on the notion
of authenticity in contemporary literature. She holds an MA (Women and Literature) and
PhD from the University of Hull and an MA (British and North American Literature) and
BA from the Universidad Autonoma de Barcelona (Spain).
Emma SANDERS completed a BA in English Literature in July 2008, and is currently
studying for the MA in Women, Gender and Literature at the University of Hull. Her
research interests are in the field of 1860s sensation fiction and her upcoming dissertation
will investigate the figure of the female criminal/villainess in the neo-Victorian sensation
novel.
Claire WAITE is currently studying for a Master’s qualification in Women, Gender and
Literature at the University of Hull, where she previously gained her BA in English.
During her time at Hull, Claire has developed a particular interest in Gothic literature,
colonial and post-colonial literature, and concepts of gender in literature. She is currently
investigating themes of masculinity in Gothic literature at the fin de siècle.
Samuel WHYBROW is studying for an MA by research at the University of Hull, where
he achieved a joint BA in Drama and English in 2008. He is writing his dissertation on the
subject of Russell Hoban and music.