Li Liu
Research
Thesis Working Title
‘What Do Texts Want?’: The Want and Liminality of Working-Class Women in Mid-Victorian Bourgeois Paternalistic Literature
Research Interests
My research investigates a shared 'liminality' (the unstable state between child and adult, human and nonhuman) specifically about working-class female characters in what I call 'mid-Victorian bourgeois paternalistic literature' (fiction written by and for the middle class, with bourgeois ideologies as the dominant voice in narration). I explore how the dynamic and contradictory bourgeois ideology of class and gender destabilizes the narrative framing of certain characters. My research interests include:
- Victorian literature
- Narrative theories
- Feminism
- Marxism
- Infantilization, animalization, and reification in Victorian discourse
- Victorian bourgeois ideology, esp. in terms of class and gender
Supervisors
Education
2019 – Present: PhD in English and Comparative Literary Studies, The University of Warwick.
2017 – 18: MA Comparative Literature, University College London [Distinction]
2013 – 17: BA English, Anhui University [Grade: 90.23/100, thesis distinction]
2014 – 15: Exchange Programme, Providence University [Grade: 91/100]
Publication
2021: Co-author and Co-translator of ‘Leafing through Ali Smith’s Autumn: A Roundtable Discussion Amongst Young Researchers’ (从阿莉•史密斯小说《秋》看英国脱欧：青年学者圆桌会), New Perspectives on World Literature/ World Literature Recent Developments (外国文学动态研究), 6 (2021), 25–37 <https://caod.oriprobe.com/articles/62413426/cong_a_li__shi_mi_si_xiao_shuo__qiu__kan_ying_guo_.htm>. For the English version, see https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/yvi5bM8avAJL5SCJX9FVng.
Conference
Presentation
5 – 8 January 2023 (forthcoming): ‘Dombey and Son and Lover: Class Conflicts between Middle-Class Parents and Working-Class Children’, MLA 2023, San Francisco, US
8 – 10 July 2022 (forthcoming): ‘Good! Hear, hear! Hurrah!’: Hard Times as Public Performance’, The 27th Annual Dickens Society Symposium, hosted by City, University of London, UK
28 – 30 June 2022 (forthcoming): ‘First-Person/Third-Person Shift: Narrative Instability and Character Liminality in George Eliot’s Adam Bede’, 2022 International Conference on Narrative, the ISSN’s 37th Annual Gathering, hosted by the University of Chichester, UK
12 – 14 July 2021: 'Seeing Jenny Wren as a "Child" Through the Bourgeois Lens: Narrative Distance and Absence in Our Mutual Friend', The 26th Annual Dickens Society Symposium (virtual due to the pandemic)
13 – 15 November 2020: ‘A Scandal of a Scandal: Flânerie in Modern Babylon’, 92nd Annual Conference of the South Atlantic Modern Language Association (SAMLA 92)(virtual due to the pandemic)
Organization
11 July, 2020: Co-organised with Ruby Turok-Squire, 'Rainbows in Our Windows: Childhood in the Time of Corona', a one-day international, interdisciplinary conference (virtual due to the pandemic). The conference proceedings were collected and edited in a special issue of Issues in English.
11 May 2020: Co-organised with Chunyan Jia, Anna Rivers, and Ruby Turok-Squire, '16th Annual English Postgraduate Symposium', a one-day roundtable showcasing the work of the University of Warwick’s postgraduates in English and Comparative Literary Studies and related disciplines (virtual due to the pandemic)
Teaching
2021 – 22: Seminar Tutor, EN122 Modes of Reading, University of Warwick
2020 – 21: Seminar Tutor Assistant, EN122 Modes of Reading, University of Warwick
Awards
2020: WRSA Bursary Fund for Rainbows in Our Windows Conference (£100)
2019-2023: CSC-Warwick Joint Scholarship (three-year tuition waiver+£1200 pounds per month maintenance stipend)
Membership
March 2022 – March 2023: MLA Convention
February 2022 – February 2023: The International Society for the Study of Narrative
May 2021 – May 2022: The Dickens Society
July 2020 – June 2021: The South Atlantic Modern Language Association (SAMLA)
Li Liu
PhD candidate, Senior Graduate Teaching Assistant, Dept of English & Comparative Literary Studies
Student email address:
Staff email address:
Office hour: Fridays 3-4 pm
Room: FAB6.06