Simone Blandford

PhD Student in English and Comparative Literary Studies

Email: simone.blandford@warwick.ac.uk

Twitter: @SimoneBlandford

Supervisors: Prof Stephen ShapiroLink opens in a new window & Dr Mark Storey Link opens in a new window

Funding: Midlands4Cities (M4C) (AHRC)Link opens in a new window

Membership:

British Association for American Studies Link opens in a new window

About

I am a PhD student working within the Department of English and Comparative Literary Studies. I work within the field of American Studies and my PhD thesis is entitled "Chicago and the Radical American Novel." I am exploring the relationship between Marxism and the novel within the American context to better understand the country's radical past. In doing so, I aim to increase awareness of this oft-ignored aspect of American life and how it can reveal more about the present uptick in left-wing movements. To illustrate this, I am looking at early twentieth-century Chicagoan fiction.

Research Interests

American literature | radical/political fiction | Marxist literary studies | Urban studies

Conference Papers

'the great grey city': Imagined Boundaries in The Pit, Warwick English Postgraduate Symposium, University of Warwick, May 2023.

The Alarm and Lucy Parsons's Literary Style, British Association for Victorian Studies Conference, University of Surrey, September 2023.

Chicago and the Afterlives of the Paris Commune, British Association of Nineteenth-Century Americanists Symposium, University of Bristol, December 2023.

Reading/Riding the New York City Subway, British Association for American Studies, Online, April 2024.

Publications

Advertising Etiquette: On Shaping the New York City Subway, Journal of the History of Ideas Blog, November 2024.

Fellowships

Media on the Margins: the impact of radical pamphlets on Chicago's marginalised communities, 1871-1940, AHRC-IPS, The Kluge Center, Library of Congress, 2024.

Education

BA English Literature, Exeter University 2021

MA Issues in Modern Culture, University College London, 2022