The 2011 Summer School Tutors

Modernism

Mark Bolsover

Mark recently submitted his PhD-thesis in English Literature at the University of Edinburgh under the supervision of Dr Simon Malpas. His research focuses on a comparison of James Joyce and Friedrich Nietzsche, in particular on the concept of the ironic self-creation of the artist and the ways in which both writers appropriate and reconfigure Romantic conceptions of artistic inspiration for peculiarly antiRomantic ends...

Mark currently works as a Teaching Assistant within the Department of English Literature at the University of Edinburgh, teaching second year degree students on the MA English literature course and also as Visiting Lecturer in Critical Theory in The School of Drama and Creative Industries at Queen Margaret University.

Evan Smith

Evan's research interests center on the relationship between literature and philosophy, specifically the ontology of the literary work of art. He has received joint funding (2009-13) through the Canadian Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) Doctoral Fellowship, the Overseas Research Scholarship Scheme (ORS), and the University of St Andrews in support of his current dissertation addressing the relation of Samuel Beckett's aesthetic project to the Phenomenological tradition embodied in the writing of Martin Heidegger, Hans-Georg Gadamer, Wolfgang Iser, Paul Ricoeur, Gianni Vattimo and others. His research is, to a certain extent, informed by the work of the Frankfurt School with a special interest in the writing of Max Weber, Theodor Adorno, and Herbert Marcuse, and Jürgen Habermas as well as more contemporary cultural theorists such as Jean Baudrillard, Slavoj Žižek, and Simon Critchley. He has presented widely at conferences from 2006 onward in Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Ireland on a range of topics relating to Critical Theory, Continental Philosophy, 20th Century Literature, and Aesthetics.

Maria-Daniella Dick    

Maria was awarded her PhD from the University of Glasgow in December 2010. Her research, funded by the AHRC, focused on Dante, James Joyce and Jacques Derrida, and she is currently writing a book on the same topic. Her research interests concern the interstices between literature, theory and philosophy, especially in the thinking and writing of modernity. Maria is looking forward to returning to the University of Edinburgh, where she had a scholarly interlude between undergraduate and Masters study to gain an accelerated LLB, before returning to Glasgow for postgraduate work. She tutors, at present, in the University of Glasgow, in both the departments of English Literature and Comparative Literature.

Ben Davies

Ben recently submitted his PhD thesis in the School of English, the Universityof St Andrews. This research focuses on the relationship between sex, time and space in contemporary fiction. He received his MA in English from the University of St Andrews and his MSt in Language and Literature (1900-Present) from the University of Oxford.

He is the co-editor of Sex, Gender and Time in Fiction and Culture (Palgrave Macmillan: 2011). Ben’s wider research interests include the relationship between philosophy and literature, representations of sexual behaviour, theories and representations of time and space, critical theory and modern and contemporary literature. At St Andrews, Ben teaches nineteenth-, twentieth-century and contemporary literature, literary theory, gender studies and the history of ideas.

Scottish Literature 1900-Present

Russell Jones

Russell is an Edinburgh-based writer and researcher. He is currently investigating the science fiction poetry of Edwin Morgan whilst tutoring in Scottish Literature at Edinburgh University. Russell's collection of science fiction poems, The Last Refuge, was published in 2009 (Forest Press) and his work has won recognition in a number of international competitions including the Eric Gregory Award (2007) and The Bridport Prize (2007-2009). Russell's research interests are in contemporary poetry and poetic form and he has given talks across the UK on the interactions of science and literature. He currently co-moderates writersdock.org's poetry department and writes articles on children's literature for therustykey.com.  

Linda Tym

Linda holds a PhD in English Literature from the University of Edinburgh. Her thesis explored the position of memory as a narrative device in twentieth-century and contemporary Scottish fiction. She is also intrigued in the ways Scottish history and culture is transferred through diasporic literatures.

Currently, Linda is a tutor in Scottish Literature at the University of Edinburgh. After five years of teaching courses on English contemporary, Canadian, and World literatures in Scotland and Canada, Linda continues to find teaching the favourite part of her week and looks forward to SUISS this summer.

Contemporary Literature

Tom Farrington

Tom gained an MA (Hons) in English Literature and an MSc in Creative Writing at the University of Edinburgh, where he is currently studying for a PhD. His thesis is on aesthetics and politics in the work of Sherman Alexie, a contemporary Spokane/Coeur d'Alene Indian writer, poet and filmmaker. Other research interests include the literature of the American South, representations of monstrosity, and narratives of trauma.

Tom has taught English Literature and Creative Writing at South East European University in Macedonia, and currently works in Academic Support at Edinburgh's Heriot-Watt University.

Francesca Lotti

Francesca graduated fromMilan State University, where she received a PhD in British Literature and Drama in 2006. Her research project concerned the contaminations and cross-pollination of Japanese culture and traditions on British visual arts and drama between the end of the XIX and the beginning of the XX century.

After publishing essays on modernist theatre and visual arts, she has lately focused on postmodern drama from Samuel Beckett and Harold Pinter to Sarah Kane, Douglas Maxwell and Kwame Kwei-Armah. Her biggest interest explores multicultural hybridity in contemporary British theatre, and that's why she feels so privileged to return to SUISS and enjoy such a multicultural and enriching experience!

Karin Sellberg

Karin holds a PhD in English Literature from the University of Edinburgh, where she is currently teaching modules on literary history, criticism and theory. Her thesis reconsiders 1980's and 1990's queer literary criticism through the theories of gender and sexuality prevalent in recent corporeal feminism. She has published in Australian Feminist Studies and Deleuze Studies on transgender debates within queer theory and various theories of gender and corporeal subjectivity in Rosi Braidotti's work.

Her research interests include models of gender and embodiment in contemporary fiction, the debate of gender, sexuality and corporeality in transgender studies and queer theory, and conceptions of body fat in contemporary culture and feminist theory.

Creative Writing

Claire Askew

Claire's work has appeared in a variety of major publications including Poetry Scotland, The Edinburgh Review, Textualities and The Guardian. In 2008 she was awarded the Grierson Verse Prize, the Sloan Prize for Writing in Lowland Scots Vernacular, the Lewis Edwards Award for Poetry and the William Sharpe Hunter Memorial Scholarship for Creative Writing. She was also nominated for the Scottish Variety Best Young Scottish Writer of the Year Award in 2009, and has been longlisted for an Eric Gregory Award.

Claire's poems have appeared in two of the Scottish Poetry Library's Best Scottish Poems of the Year anthology. She is also a regular on the Edinburgh performance poetry circuit, and has appeared at various Edinburgh festivals, In 2009 Claire won the Scottish Poetry Library's Sotto Voce Slam. Her pamphlet The Mermaid and the Sailors is published by Red Squirrel Press.

Claire has a MA (Hons) in English Literature, a MSc in Creative Writing and is currently working on a PhD in Creative Writing and Contemporary Scottish Poetry, all with the University of Edinburgh. She is currently working as a Lecturer in Literature and Communications at Edinburgh's Telford College.

Emma Hardy

Emma is a prize-winning writer, with short stories published in print magazines, online and print journals, and anthologies and work for the stage performed at theatres within the UK and at international theatre festivals. Her other published work includes educational resources and careers publications, reviews and journal articles. Emma lives in Scotland and works as an Associate Lecturer (teaching Creative Writing) for the Open University. Previously she worked as a part-time lecturer in Creative Writing at the University of Salford, and taught Creative Writing on a freelance basis. Her website can be found here.

Helen Sedgwick

Helen is the author of two novels: Our Little Joke and Burning Rates. Her short fiction has appeared in anthologies and magazines including in Litro, Let's Pretend, and Writers' Bloc, and her non-fiction has been published in a range of international journals including Nature. Co-editor of Fractured West and review editor of Gutter, Helen also works as a freelance literary editor and reviewer. She teaches creative writing for the University of Glasgow and facilitates writing workshops throughout Scotland. Co-host of the monthly performance event Words Per Minute, she has also performed her work at Aye Write! and the Edinburgh International Book Festival. She is represented by Jenny Brown Associates, and her website can be found here.

Viccy Adams

Viccy holds a PhD in Creative Writing from Newcastle University, where she works as a creative writing tutor. Her thesis examines the uses of paratext in contemporary British fiction, with a particular focus on hybrid novels and linked short story collections. Her short fiction has been published widely online and in print anthologies, and she also enjoys running community writing projects such as Write Around The Toon and collaborating on cross-platform work such as Dirty Laundry. In her spare time she's an editor for Friction Magazine, an arts enthusiast, and a perpetual dreamer.

Jane Alexander

 Jane originally trained as an illustrator,but swapped sketchbooks for notebooks several years ago. Since then she's published short stories and creative non-fiction pieces in magazines and anthologies including Litro, Mslexia, The Orphan Leaf Review, A Wilder Vein, Snacks After Swimming and Stramash; been awarded a Scottish Arts Council New Writer’s Bursary; and gained an M.Phil in creative writing from the University of Glasgow. Her focus is on writing novels and short fiction, with recent forays into screenwriting with Screen Academy Scotland and writing for radio with BBC Scotland Radio Drama/Scottish Book Trust. Jane teaches creative writing in higher, further, adult and community education: she's an Associate Lecturer with the Open University; she runs a creative writing class for Transition, as part of a programme of training for recovered and recovering drug users; and she teaches evening and community education classes for the City of Edinburgh Council. In 2010 she completed a City & Guilds certificate, Preparing to Teach in the Lifelong Learning Sector, and became a professional member of the National Association of Writers in Education. She also works as a literature development freelancer for the Scottish Poetry Library and the Edinburgh UNESCO City of Literature Trust. Jane's teaching approach is supportive and constructive, centred around a commitment to take the time to understand where learners are coming from and what their personal goals may be, and to engage positively with their work on its own terms.