Jen Baker
I am a Post Graduate Research Student at the University of Bristol in the School of English with academic interests in contemporary horror fiction, social history, psychoanalysis, gender and sexuality. My doctoral thesis explores the topos of the "evil child" that is prevalent in twentieth and twenty-first century fiction. My research attempts to trace its origins in both literary and cultural history and chart how it has evolved over the centuries and identify what form(s) it currently assumes. The main body of my research will focus on the rapid reconstructions and deconstructions of the figure from the nineteenth century wicked and sinful child, to the uncanny, to the demonic and murderous, in an attempt to ascertain how this trope correlates to our own responses to the "real" child. Pre-twentieth century depictions will be theological texts such as St Augustine's Confessions, monstrous births in pamphlets, broadsheets and literature, to records of Bartholomew Fair, texts by writers such as Goethe, Poe and the Bronte's, and reaching a turning point with James' The Turn of the Screw and the works of Sigmund Freud. Examples of contemporary depictions being explored are The Midwich Cuckoos, The Bad Seed, The Exorcist, Pet Semetary, The Fifth Child, Let the Right One in and We Need to Talk about Kevin.
My favourite books are Jane Austen's Persuasion, Karen Maitland's A Company of Liars trilogy, Carlos Ruiz Zafon's The Shadow of the Wind, Jeb Rubenfeld's The Interpretation of Murder and I am currently reading Game of Thrones, which looks set to join this list very soon!
In terms of television and film, I am a big fan David Attenborough documentaries, of period dramas (particularly Austen and Dickens adaptations), sci-fi and fantasy such as Game of Thrones, Firefly, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Dexter etc, contemporary adaptations of Shakespeare and Austen (Baz Lurhman's Romeo and Juliet, Clueless). Films such as Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Hitchcock films (particuarly The Lady Vanishes, Rear Window) anything by Tim Burton and films starring Audrey Tatou head a very long list of likes!
http://bristol.academia.edu/JenBaker
Daniel Evers
My name is Daniel Evers and I am a 24 year old postgraduate student at the University of Bristol. I am currently in my first year of (what I hope will turn into) a PhD and I also live and work in the beautiful city of Bristol.
I am undertaking a comparative literary study primarily of the British, American, and French literary reactions to the European Revolutions of 1848-51. On the British side I am looking closely at the poetry of Arthur Hugh Clough, Matthew Arnold, Elizabeth Barrett Browning and her husband Robert Browning, incorporating some of the works of Thomas Carlyle and Charles Dickens, amongst others.
From an American perspective I will focus on the texts of Walt Whitman, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, and Margaret Fuller, although this is not yet an exhaustive list. I am also researching the work of French writers including Charles Baudelaire, Marie d'Agoult, George Sands and Pierre-Jean de Béranger.
Liz Renes
I am a PhD candidate studying under Dr. Liz Prettejohn at the University of York. I received my BA from New College of Florida in
2005, and my MA from Sotheby’s Institute of Art, London in 2007 with a focus on Art Deco design and interiors. My current doctoral dissertation project explores the late Victorian portraitist John Singer Sargent and his simultaneous relationship with both the French Impressionists and the British Aesthetic Movement during the early stages of his career between 1878 and 1886. To date, my research explores themes such as Sargent's relationship with Walter Pater, Vernon Lee and early Aesthetic texts and theory, J.E. Millais and his relationship with Sargent as an early Aesthetic mentor, the Victorian concept of childhood as exemplified by the works mentioned in these previous two themes, the cosmopolitan artist and his interaction with expatriate communities, and transnational critical reviews in Paris, London, and the United States and their engagement with language.
Favorite texts include the works of Henry Miller, specifically Tropic of Cancer, and Anais Nin's journals, the letters and short stories of Henry James, Haruki Murakami, and the tragedies of Shakespeare (I may or may not be able to recite Romeo and Juliet by heart!).
Favorite films include Some Like it Hot, To Catch a Thief (or any Hitchcock really), Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Alien & Aliens, Marie Antoinette, Tombstone, Death Proof (most Tarantino really), The Nightmare Before Christmas (and most vintage Burton), or any really old school, terrible slasher/horror films. Hobbies, before I undertook my monstrous time suck of a PhD, included Pilates, knitting, museum-going, visiting historic houses and antiquing (yes I'm an old lady at heart apparently).
I am a Post Graduate Research Student at the University of Bristol in the School of English with academic interests in contemporary horror fiction, social history, psychoanalysis, gender and sexuality. My doctoral thesis explores the topos of the "evil child" that is prevalent in twentieth and twenty-first century fiction. My research attempts to trace its origins in both literary and cultural history and chart how it has evolved over the centuries and identify what form(s) it currently assumes. The main body of my research will focus on the rapid reconstructions and deconstructions of the figure from the nineteenth century wicked and sinful child, to the uncanny, to the demonic and murderous, in an attempt to ascertain how this trope correlates to our own responses to the "real" child. Pre-twentieth century depictions will be theological texts such as St Augustine's Confessions, monstrous births in pamphlets, broadsheets and literature, to records of Bartholomew Fair, texts by writers such as Goethe, Poe and the Bronte's, and reaching a turning point with James' The Turn of the Screw and the works of Sigmund Freud. Examples of contemporary depictions being explored are The Midwich Cuckoos, The Bad Seed, The Exorcist, Pet Semetary, The Fifth Child, Let the Right One in and We Need to Talk about Kevin.
My favourite books are Jane Austen's Persuasion, Karen Maitland's A Company of Liars trilogy, Carlos Ruiz Zafon's The Shadow of the Wind, Jeb Rubenfeld's The Interpretation of Murder and I am currently reading Game of Thrones, which looks set to join this list very soon!
In terms of television and film, I am a big fan David Attenborough documentaries, of period dramas (particularly Austen and Dickens adaptations), sci-fi and fantasy such as Game of Thrones, Firefly, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Dexter etc, contemporary adaptations of Shakespeare and Austen (Baz Lurhman's Romeo and Juliet, Clueless). Films such as Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Hitchcock films (particuarly The Lady Vanishes, Rear Window) anything by Tim Burton and films starring Audrey Tatou head a very long list of likes!
http://bristol.academia.edu/JenBaker
Daniel Evers
My name is Daniel Evers and I am a 24 year old postgraduate student at the University of Bristol. I am currently in my first year of (what I hope will turn into) a PhD and I also live and work in the beautiful city of Bristol.
I am undertaking a comparative literary study primarily of the British, American, and French literary reactions to the European Revolutions of 1848-51. On the British side I am looking closely at the poetry of Arthur Hugh Clough, Matthew Arnold, Elizabeth Barrett Browning and her husband Robert Browning, incorporating some of the works of Thomas Carlyle and Charles Dickens, amongst others.
From an American perspective I will focus on the texts of Walt Whitman, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, and Margaret Fuller, although this is not yet an exhaustive list. I am also researching the work of French writers including Charles Baudelaire, Marie d'Agoult, George Sands and Pierre-Jean de Béranger.
Liz Renes
I am a PhD candidate studying under Dr. Liz Prettejohn at the University of York. I received my BA from New College of Florida in
2005, and my MA from Sotheby’s Institute of Art, London in 2007 with a focus on Art Deco design and interiors. My current doctoral dissertation project explores the late Victorian portraitist John Singer Sargent and his simultaneous relationship with both the French Impressionists and the British Aesthetic Movement during the early stages of his career between 1878 and 1886. To date, my research explores themes such as Sargent's relationship with Walter Pater, Vernon Lee and early Aesthetic texts and theory, J.E. Millais and his relationship with Sargent as an early Aesthetic mentor, the Victorian concept of childhood as exemplified by the works mentioned in these previous two themes, the cosmopolitan artist and his interaction with expatriate communities, and transnational critical reviews in Paris, London, and the United States and their engagement with language.
Favorite texts include the works of Henry Miller, specifically Tropic of Cancer, and Anais Nin's journals, the letters and short stories of Henry James, Haruki Murakami, and the tragedies of Shakespeare (I may or may not be able to recite Romeo and Juliet by heart!).
Favorite films include Some Like it Hot, To Catch a Thief (or any Hitchcock really), Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Alien & Aliens, Marie Antoinette, Tombstone, Death Proof (most Tarantino really), The Nightmare Before Christmas (and most vintage Burton), or any really old school, terrible slasher/horror films. Hobbies, before I undertook my monstrous time suck of a PhD, included Pilates, knitting, museum-going, visiting historic houses and antiquing (yes I'm an old lady at heart apparently).