Professional biography
I am a specialist in early modern literature and book history, particularly manuscript culture of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Before joining the Open University in February 2013, I worked at the English Subject Centre, Royal Holloway, University of London, a national body that organised activities and published material in support of the teaching of English Literature, English Language and Creative Writing at university level. I was educated at St. John’s College, Oxford and University College London and have held lectureships at the University of Exeter, Durham University and Queen Mary, University of London. My first academic job was a post as Research Assistant to Professor Derek Brewer at Emmanuel College, Cambridge. For several years, I was a Research Fellow at the Perdita Project (first at The Nottingham Trent University, then latterly at the University of Warwick), a pioneering Digital Humanities project dedicated to the recovery and detailed description of early modern women's manuscript writing.
Research interests
I have published research on many different early modern topics, including Ralegh, Wroth,
Shakespeare, Sidney, Spenser, translation, the protocols of early modern letter-writing, codicology and Elizabethan fiction. For the last few years, much of my research has focused on the materiality of early modern manuscripts. In my most recent publications, I have analysed Elizabeth I's love letters to the Duke of Anjou, discussed the influence of Renaissance hand-writing manuals on Elizabethan and Jacobean manuscripts, and surveyed verse miscellanies in print and
manuscript. I am a member of the Open University’s Medieval and Early Modern Research Group and of its Book History and Bibliography Research Group. I have organised two series of research seminars for the Book History group: Paper, Pen and Ink: Manuscript Cultures in Early Modern England (2012-13) and Paper, Pen and Ink 2: Manuscript Cultures in the Age of
Print (2014-15).
I have supervised one Ph.D. thesis to completion at the OU, on Freudian approaches to A
Midsummer Night's Dream. I am currently supervising Ph.D. students working on schools outreach at Shakespeare's Globe in London and on terrorism in early modern drama.
I would welcome Ph.D. applications on early modern topics, particularly in the fields of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century manuscript culture, Shakespeare, editing, early modern book history and Elizabethan and Jacobean literature.
Teaching interests
I am currently Qualification Lead for English Literature and Chair of the level 2 module A233 Telling Stories: The Novel and Beyond, for which I have written and presented material on Hardy and Shakespeare. I am deputy chair of a new level 2 module currently at the planning stage, and am also writing material on Milton and Anne Southwell for a new MA in English Literature. Previously, I was Chair of the level 3 module A334 English Literature from Shakespeare to Austen. During the production of A334, I was Part 1 chair and module deputy chair and wrote for Book 1 on As You Like It, Othello and Petrarchist poetry . I was deputy chair for A334's
predecessor, AA306 Shakespeare: Text and Performance. I have worked for the OU on validation
panels and as an academic reviewer. I have written extensively on pedagogical topics, in particular assessment and inclusive teaching.
Impact and engagement
In April 2012 I co-organised Describing, Analysing and Identifying Early Modern Handwriting:
Methods and Interests, a one-day conference at Merton College, Oxford. In 2014 I was Academic Consultant for the app developed alongside the award-winning BBCTV series The Secret Life of Books. In October 2018 I co-organised Sir Walter Ralegh: A Quadricentennial Symposium at Senate House in London to mark the anniversary of Ralegh's execution.
International links
My research on Elizabeth I's love letters was undertaken under the auspices of 'Writing Abroad', an EU-funded project based at the Università della Valle d‟Aosta in Italy. I co-edited the book that resulted from this project, along with colleagues in Italy and France, Carlo Bajetta and Guillaume Coatalen. I am currently Academic Reviewer for the English programme at the American College of Thessaloniki in Greece, an OU partner institution.
