Research & Networks

My research interests include:

  • anglophone literature from the 19th century to the present
  • resilience and vulnerability in fiction
  • strategic/new formalism(s)
  • new media studies (esp. podcast studies)
  • fan studies
  • popular fiction
  • gender studies & queer studies

Current Research Project

Postdoc Project: Resilience in Anglophone Fiction from the Nineteenth-Century to the Present

Past Research Projects

PhD Thesis: Fan Commentary Podcasts: A Formal Genre Analysis

Using the cultural studies informed formalist methodology by literary studies scholar Caroline Levine, my work explores how commentary manifests as a form in three distinct fan podcast genres: rewatch and reread podcasts, recap podcasts and review podcasts

Creative fan labour flourishes in the digital landscape of current participatory culture and is increasingly visible in podcasting, which is characterised by a low entry threshold, ease of accessibility and affordances for intimacy, authenticity and community building (cf. Berry, Llinares et al., Meserko, McGregor). “‘[F]annish’ podcasts” were described as early as 2006, when Kristina Busse noted podcasts featuring “reviews, commentary, and even creative responses such as audio plays and recorded fan fiction” (n.p.). These fan podcasts are characterised by their hosts’ thorough “scene-by-scene, almost line-by-line” (cf. The Fawlty Towers Podcast) engagement with a single or franchised media text and span so-called reread or rewatch podcasts previously addressed by Hannah McGregor (2019) as well as recap podcasts that, i.a., feature current and on-going media texts.

Using the formalist cultural studies methodology developed by Caroline Levine (Forms, 2015) to perform close analytical listenings of a range of fan commentary podcasts, I contend that these can be defined through their dominant commentary form. My dissertation adopts an interdisciplinary approach that combines work in the emerging field of podcast studies and fan studies through a new formalist methodology to consider the affordances of the podcast medium and explore their productivity for commentary podcast hosts and their participatory practices as fans. While podcasting booms and fan activities become increasingly visible in mainstream media, fan podcasts have not been extensively researched let alone considered through a formalist cultural studies lens. My dissertation thus seeks to address the current lack of research into podcasts genres by considering the fan commentary podcast genre through its aesthetic and social formal structures.

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The Uses of Form: Theory – Methodology – Pedagogy

Together with Julia Ditter I have organised a collaborative and interactive online workshop titled “The Uses of Form” which took place on 22-23 July 2022. We’re interested in different perspectives on new formalism(s) and want to explore the theoretical, methodological and pedagogical uses of form understood as “an arrangement of elements—an ordering, patterning, or shaping” with aesthetic, material, political and social dimensions (Caroline Levine, 2015). You can read more about the workshop on the project website: https://theusesofform.wordpress.com/

Networks

I am currently active in the following roles and networks/associations: