I hold an MA (Hons) in English and French (2011) and a PhD in Victorian Literature (2015) from the University of St Andrews. I joined Bangor University in 2016 as a lecturer in nineteenth-century British literature, having previously taught at St Andrews and for the Scottish Universities' International Summer School based at Edinburgh University.

I teach across the English Literature curriculum, focusing on modern literature (1750 onward).

I would welcome PhD proposals in the following subject areas: Victorian literature and culture; Neo-Victorian literature; letters in literature and epistolary writing; media, networks, and technologies of communication in literature; infrastructure and literature; the life and work of Thomas Hardy. If you are a prospective doctoral researcher and not sure whether your project fits my expertise, please don't hesitate to contact me to discuss your proposal.

I'm the principal editor of a four-volume source book on nineteenth-century communication culture, published by Routledge in 2025. Nineteenth-Century Communications: A Documentary History, 1780-1918 seeks to help researchers navigate the overwhelming wealth of materials related to the development of communications and their political, economic, social, and cultural impacts. I am grateful to the British Academy and the Leverhulme Trust for supporting this work with a small research grant.

In 2022-23, I ran, alongside Dr Gregory Tate, the AHRC-funded research network Victorian Literary Languages. This project led to the publication of a special issue of the journal 19: Interdisciplinary Studies in the Long Nineteenth Century and a forthcoming edited volume, under contract with Liverpool University Press. 

I am working on a book examining the ways in which nineteenth-century popular verse cultures responded to - and helped to shape - the experience of living in a world transformed by mass communication and new communication technologies.

Building on my interest in communications, my research also explores the infrastructures (especially roads and bridges) that underpinned the increasingly faster transmission of messages. In particular, I have been working on the cultural reception in Welsh and English of the two bridges over the Menai. My article 'A Tale of Two Bridges' appeared in the Journal of Victorian Culture.

My first monograph, Thomas Hardy and Victorian Communication, was published by Palgrave in 2016. Related research on epistolary elements of novels and stories by Charlotte Brontë, Charles Dickens, Elizabeth Gaskell, Thomas Hardy, and Anthony Trollope has been published in Brontë Studies, Victorian Literature and Culture and Victorian Review, as well as in edited collections.

I have also written on the ways in which the plots and narrative form of literary texts refract changing attitudes toward sexual knowledge during the Victorian period. An essay about the significance of handwriting in Victorian fiction, periodicals, and graphology manuals has appeared in an edited collection about Judgement in the Victorian Age.

I am willing to supervise a PhD

2026

  • PublishedWrite Now! Doc
    Hristova, E. (Other), Kirkpatrick, L. (Other), Koehler, K. (Other) & Harrison, S. (Other), 20 May 2026
    Research output: Non-textual form › Digital or Visual Products

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2026

  • Holyhead: Place, path and Identity

    The workshop explored literary representations of Holyhead. In many texts, Holyhead appears primarily as a place of transit, associated with journeys to Ireland or from Ireland to London. The session introduced a selection of key examples to illustrate this pattern, before embedding these in historical context, examining how Holyhead developed and came to be perceived as a transitional place, and how this identity persists into the present. Participants discussed key questions: what does this history suggest about Holyhead today? Is transition central to its identity, or are there alternative ways of understanding the place? Rooted in Holyhead, The participants were then invited to respond to creative prompt asking them to represent something about Holyhead that they feel people should stay and linger for – why come to, rather than through Holyhead.

    This free workshop was made possible by Medrwn Môn and the Shared prosperity fund and Cyngor Sir Ynys Môn. This work forms part of initial consultation around public art in Holyhead, led by Studio Response in collaboration with Anna Farrall.

    26 Jun 2026

    Activity: Participation in Academic workshop, seminar, course (Keynote/plenary speaker)
  • When Infrastructures Become Landmarks

    Contribution to short course on 'Historic Landmarks of North Wales'

    10 Mar 2026

    Links:

    Activity: Oral presentation (Speaker)
  • 'Hail matchless monument [...] of skill divine': Engineering as Art in Responses to the Menai Bridge

    Stephen Colclough Lecture 2026

    7 Mar 2026

    Activity: Invited talk (Speaker)
  • Writing the Menai Bridge, 1818-1840

    Talk delivered as part of Menai Suspension Bridge Bicentenary History Day

    31 Jan 2026

    Activity: Invited talk (Speaker)

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  • Interview with Aled Hughes on Radio Cymru

    An interview about new research into poetry and other writing about the bridges across the Menai.

    19 Nov 2019

    Activity: Types of Public engagement and outreach - Media article or participation (Contributor)
  • 'Cables and Bridges: Connecting Wales in the Nineteenth Century'

    A talk as part of a series of lectures offered by the university to coincide with the first installment of the Winter Light event.

    16 Nov 2019

    Activity: Types of Public engagement and outreach - Public lecture/debate/seminar (Contributor)
  • Dear Memory...

    Public workshop exploring the ways in which poetry can change our understanding of the relationship between place and memory.

    14 Nov 2019

    Activity: Types of Public engagement and outreach - Public lecture/debate/seminar (Contributor)
  • 'A Tale of Two Bridges: Dreaming of Infrastructure in Victorian Literature'

    Lecture given as part of the Shankland Library Lecture series at Bangor University.

    6 Nov 2019

    Activity: Invited talk (Speaker)
  • 'not even knowledge takes all strangeness from the world': Knowing the Past in Sarah Perry's The Essex Serpent

    28 Aug 2019

    Activity: Oral presentation (Speaker)
  • Interview on BBC Radio 4 Woman's Hour

    Short interview, alongside actor Isabella Nefar, about Howard Brenton's play Jude (Hampstead Theatre), loosely based on Thomas Hardy's novel Jude the Obscure.

    9 May 2019

    Links:

    Activity: Types of Public engagement and outreach - Media article or participation (Contributor)
  • Writing about Illness and Well-being in the Nineteenth Century

    One-day workshop for twenty KS4 students from the South West, organised in collaboration with Dr Catherine Charlwood (St Anne's College Oxford) and Mr Andrew Hewitt (Hull University), designed to support pupils' engagement with and understanding of nineteenth-century non-fiction and their interest in Thomas Hardy. The workshop was funded by the European Research Council-funded project 'Diseases of Modern Life', based at Oxford University, and supported by the Thomas Hardy Society.

    7 May 2019

    Activity: Types of Public engagement and outreach - Schools engagement (Organiser)
  • The Mayor of Casterbridge at AS-Level: A Workshop

    Invited workshop for AS-level students at Ysgol Syr Hugh Owen, Caernarfon.

    3 May 2019

    Activity: Types of Public engagement and outreach - Schools engagement (Speaker)
  • Welsh Crucible

    May 2019 – Jul 2019

    Activity: Participation in Academic workshop, seminar, course (Participant)
  • Engaging Students in Nineteenth-Century Prose

    The free workshop introduced resources designed to support the teaching and study of nineteenth-century non-fiction. It also explored strategies for using these resources and for drawing on Hardy Country heritage in the teaching of nineteenth-century non-fiction. A subsequent event for pupils, designed to support their engagement with nineteenth-century non-fiction, took place on 7 May 2019.

    12 Apr 2019

    Activity: Participation in Academic workshop, seminar, course (Organiser)

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