Dr Emma Francis

Research interests

Much of my current research is located at the interface of Victorian studies and feminist thought and I have particular interest in nineteenth-century British women's poetry, especially Amy Levy, Letitia Landon, Emily Brontë and Mathilde Blind. A current project focuses on the intellectual traffic between Bloomsbury and the East End between 1880 and 1920, and its inflection by 'Darwinian Epiphany', considering, among others, Olive Schreiner, Eleanor Marx, Clementina Black, Israel Zangwill and Stewart Headlam. I am also working on a shorter project 'Psychoanalysis in Egypt: Victorian "science" and Freud's "historical novel"', material from which has been tried out in panels and places focusing on the subject of 'Victorian Freud'. I am interested in the issue of embodied knowledge. An early piece of this work is my paper 'Swooning, Swaying, Flushing and Blushing: Pathological Circulations of Early Victorian Poetry', which had a try-out at VSAWC.

Teaching and supervision

My main commitments to our undergraduate programme are EN2B4/EN3B4 Romantic and Victorian Poetry, the Honours level core option and my Honours option, EN2E2/EN3E2 English Literature and Feminisms, 1790-1899. I supervise undergraduate dissertations in the areas of 19th century literature and culture, and gender, sexuality and the body, (mostly) 1780 - the present.

I've also long enjoyed Master's level teaching and sometimes co-teach and sometimes turn and turn about with Rashmi Varma, Feminist Literary Theory. I contribute to our MA strengths in 18th and 19th century studies with my option course, The Condition of England: Perceptions in Victorian Literature and to the research and teaching base of the department in psychoanalysis with my MA option module, Psychoanalysis and Creativity. I supervise several MA dissertations each year in areas related to these subjects.

I supervise PhDs in two areas - 19th century literature and culture, and gender, sexuality and the body. I'm especially interested in projects that engage any or all of psychoanalysis, religious experience and identity, Darwinism, and their heresies. Above is a tab to link to the list of my past and current doctoral students. I enjoy and believe my doctoral students often benefit from co-supervision. I've co-supervised in the past with colleagues from history of art, education studies, creative writing, philosophy and film and tv studies. The first doctorate I supervised was a study of the politics and poetics of adolescent boys in workshop engagement with classical dance. I welcome projects exploring experience of embodiment and/or community within any dance tradition. I would probably put in place for future such projects co-supervision with a colleague in the dance studies research centre - the leading location for this research in the UK - at our Midlands 4 Cities partner at nearby Coventry University. If you feel you might want to consider coming under my PhD supervision and Warwick might be the right place for you to be please send me an informal pre-application enquiry by email - a note of your BA and MA, where and when obtained and classification/GPA and a c. 500 word statement of your proposed research project.

My students and prospective students should note that I do not permit the use of AI in any shape or form in the education and supervision I am involved with (as is the case in my own research, writing, teaching and course authorship). This includes the construction of any application for funding I or my students are involved with, notwithstanding UKRI has now issued a statement that they find it permissible to use AI in writing funding applications.

Selected publications

• Co-ed (with Nadia Valman) Revisiting the Victorian East End, 19: Interdisciplinary Studies in the Long 19th Century, Winter 2011. www.19.bbk.ac.uk
• 'Why wasn't Amy Levy more of a socialist?: Levy, Clementina Black and Liza of Lambeth', in Naomi Hetherington and Nadia Valman eds. Amy Levy: Critical Essays (Ohio University Press, 2010)
• '"I like solitude before a mirror": Corinne, Marie Bashkirtseff and the decline of the Woman of Genius', Corvey Women Writers on the Web, Issue 2, Spring 2005
• '"Healing relief without detriment to modest reserve": Keble, women's poetry and Victorian cultural theory', in Kirstie Blair ed., John Keble in Context (Anthem, 2004)
• Co-ed (with Kate Chedgzoy and Murray Pratt) In a Queer Place: Sexuality and Belonging (Ashgate: 2002)
• 'Socialist feminism and sexual instinct: Amy Levy and Eleanor Marx', in John Stokes ed. Eleanor Marx: Life, Work, Contacts (Ashgate: 2000)
• '"Conquered good and conquering ill": Femininity, power and Romanticism in Emily Bronte's poetry', in Edward Larrissy ed., Romanticism and Postmodernism (Cambridge University Press: 1999)