Election Update – July 2025

Election Update: We received one application for the one available senior position on the BAMS Executive Steering Committee. We hereby declare that Jade Elizabeth French was elected unopposed at the end of the previously-announced election period, on 24 July 2025.

Candidate Statement:

Dr Jade Elizabeth French

Nominator: Dr Barbara Cooke, Loughborough University, UK

I’m committed to developing modernist studies in interdisciplinary, collaborative, and public-facing directions. My research engages with ageing, care, and health humanities through the lens of modernist literature, and I have worked to bring modernist studies into conversation with adjacent fields, including cultural studies, ageing studies, and craft practices.

At Loughborough University, I have co-led the Health Humanities Research Network and the Cultural Currents Network. In these roles, I have curated exhibitions, organised symposiums, and facilitated cross-disciplinary collaboration. I also co-run Decorating Dissidence, a platform that connects modernist maker legacies with contemporary craft practices. Through this initiative, I have curated four exhibitions, launched a podcast, hosted public events, and write a weekly newsletter. These projects reflect my commitment to making modernist studies accessible, relevant, and publicly engaged.

BAMS has played a formative role in my academic journey, and I would welcome the chance to give back. I am particularly interested in strengthening support and expanding visibility for researchers experiencing precarity, exploring reciprocal mentorship models, and further developing NWiMS as an inclusive hub for new work. I am also keen to collaborate with others on how we might advocate for the humanities during a time of widespread sector precarity, and the role BAMS plays in supporting members through labour issues. I’d bring to the committee experience in making interdisciplinary connections, creative dissemination, and organisational skills, along with a strong sense of the importance of community, engagement, and shaping the future of our field.

Biography

Dr Jade Elizabeth French is a Leverhulme Early Career Researcher in English at Loughborough University, focusing on twentieth-century literature and visual art, with particular interests in ageing, care, and intergenerationality. She has most recently published articles in Modernist Cultures, The Gerontologist and Poetics Today, and her monograph Modernist Poetics of Ageing The Late Lives and Late Styles of Mina Loy, Djuna Barnes, and H.D. is available with Oxford University Press. Jade also co-runs the research project ‘Decorating Dissidence’, which explores the conceptual, aesthetic, and political qualities of craft from modernism to the contemporary.