We are seeking to elect 2 postgraduate representatives and 3 further members to the Executive Steering Committee of BAMS. You can find further information about the election at: https://bams.ac.uk/2018/12/30/bams-elections-2019/
Voting is open to all current members of BAMS. You can find more information about joining BAMS here.
Executive Committee nominations:
Andrew Frayn
Andrew Frayn is Lecturer in Twentieth-Century Literature and Culture at Edinburgh Napier University. He is the author of Writing Disenchantment: British First World War Prose, 1914–1930 (Manchester University Press, 2014), and has edited recent special issues of Modernist Cultures(12.1, 2017) and the Journal of War and Culture Studies(11.3, 2018).
Statement
The development of BAMS has been transformative for modernist studies in the UK. The organisation now brings together researchers across disciplines, supporting researcher development effectively at an acutely difficult time for Higher Education. As BAMS continues to grow, it is worth thinking about ways of ensuring the health of early-twentieth-century studies within and beyond the academy by engaging with subject organisations such as University English, the European Society for the Study of English, and the English Association. In the current social and political climate, is vital that we look outwards.
I have direct experience of a wide range of institutions and situations. A first-in-family postgrad, I studied for my PhD part-time and then full-time, unfunded and then funded; I have taught on precarious, temporary, fractional and permanent contracts at Russell Group and post-1992 institutions in the north-west, the midlands, and Scotland. When I got my permanent post I was applying and interviewing for a range of jobs in and out of the academy, so am acutely conscious of the impact of precarity, having actively faced the possibility of not working full-time in academia.
If elected, I will use these experiences to continue to recognise and advocate for researchers in modernist studies across the disparate range of experiences in the twenty-first century academy. I will look to contribute to the enhancement of the society’s existing excellent development work, which is vital to the continuing health of the field, and to help ensure that BAMS remains an open, inclusive, and diverse organisation.
Nominator: Dr Tara Thomson (Edinburgh Napier University)
Cleo Hanaway-Oakley
Cleo Hanaway-Oakley is Lecturer in Liberal Arts and English at the University of Bristol. Prior to joining Bristol in 2018 she worked in a professional services role, supporting knowledge exchange and impact at the University of Oxford. She has also worked for Oxford University Press’s journals division and the Bodleian Library. She holds a D.Phil. (2013) from Oxford and an MA (2007) and BA (2006) from Leeds. Her first monograph, James Joyce and the Phenomenology of Film, was published by Oxford University Press in 2017. She is currently working on a new book, provisionally entitled Modernist Spectacles: Literature, Eyesight, and Eye Care, c. 1890-1950. Her work is interdisciplinary and collaborative. At Oxford, she founded and led the Oxford Phenomenology Network. At Bristol, she has started a new Senses Clusterto bring together researchers, artists, medics, and anyone else with an interest in sensing, sensation, and the sensory.
Statement
As a student, I presented at BAMS’s inaugural conference; I have wonderful memories of snow falling faintly through the Glaswegian air as I jabbered on about Joyce. Other fond remembrances of things past include sharing ideas on teaching tricky modernist texts at the first BAMS Training Day. Last year, I was delighted to be able to give something back to BAMS; I spoke honestly about my experiences as a job-hunting ECR at the Association’s training event.
But BAMS is more than a series of events. I would like to strengthen the sense of community BAMS members feel every other day of the year, when we are not at BAMS events and, instead, are beavering away in our day jobs. As BAMS membership secretary, I would consolidate the link between EUP (who manage the membership process) and BAMS itself, creating a more friendly and engaged virtual face of BAMS. My previous work in journals publishing and knowledge exchange should prove useful here.
I am eager to widen BAMS’s membership, to engage more members from outside of literary studies. My own work is interdisciplinary and I gain a huge amount from connecting with colleagues from different disciplines. Having led two multidisciplinary networks I am experienced in bringing together people from a wide range of fields. I am also keen to better support early career members. I would develop the resources section of the BAMS website (adding, for example, a database of commonly asked interview questions), and establish a BAMS mentoring programme.
Nominators
Suzanne Hobson (Queen Mary, University of London) & Ruth Clemens (Utrecht University)
Juliette Taylor-Batty
I am a Senior Lecturer in English at Leeds Trinity University and have worked in the HE sector since 2003. I am currently programme coordinator for English Literature, and have held a range of administrative posts, including student employability, admissions, and internationalisation. My first monograph, Multilingualism in Modernist Fiction (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), focused on the use of different languages by Anglophone modernists. I have articles and chapters published and forthcoming on Rhys, Joyce, Beckett, Baudelaire, Jolas, Nabokov and Rushdie, and am the co-author of Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot(Bloomsbury, 2009). I have a particular interest in comparative and global approaches to modernism, and work across languages and literary traditions.
Statement
I would be keen to foster more comparative and international approaches to modernism within BAMS. I would seek to extend the range and scope of BAMS membership, targeting potential members working in modern languages, translation studies, and other under-represented areas. This would be supported by including more sessions within BAMS conferences and events that specifically address global and transnational modernisms.
BAMS does important work in supporting postgraduate and early career academics, and I would be committed to continuing this, for example by creating a mentorship scheme whereby experienced academics could offer support to colleagues earlier in their careers. I work part-time and have a young family, and understand the need to accommodate the diverse commitments of BAMS members: I would promote family-friendly policies at BAMS events, as well as spaces for supportive discussion around the challenges of balancing academia with other responsibilities. I would like, too, to share ideas about how to diversify the forms of intellectual exchange that we engage in at BAMS events, creating opportunities for more informal discussion of work in progress, and promoting formats such as seminars to be held alongside the more traditional panel presentations.
Nominated by Rebecca Beasley
Claire Warden
I am a Senior Lecturer in English and Drama at Loughborough University. The author of three monographs, including the British Academy-supported 2016 Migrating Modernist Performance: British Theatrical Travels through Russia, my research focuses predominantly on interdisciplinary modernism, performance history and physical culture. I am also the academic lead for the Arts Council-funded Wrestling Resurgence project.
Statement
I was co-opted on to the BAMS Exec in May 2016 and took up the role of Secretary later that year. Since then I have completed the administrative tasks associated with the Exec in a timely and comprehensible manner – agendas, minutes, setting up of meetings, coordinating conversations, and supporting the Chair. But my contribution to the BAMS Exec has, I hope, been more expansive than that, particularly in three key ways. I am asking to be considered for re-election in the hope of continuing to work on these three areas. Firstly, my presence on the Exec has enabled a stronger sense of interdisciplinarity, bringing a more performance-based perspective and encouraging fruitful cross-disciplinary conversation within the modernist community. It is important to reflect modernism’s on going expanding definitions on the BAMS Exec. Secondly, I have enjoyed getting alongside PhD and post-PhD colleagues throughout the BAMS membership. This opportunity to encourage and support a new generation of scholars has been one of the great joys of my role. Thirdly, I have been able to promote BAMS at a number of other modernist collectives, including at the past three MSA conferences and last year’s EAM conference. Responding to some of the key socio-political challenges of our time, it is increasingly important to develop dialogues with scholars out with Britain. I have actively sought to do this during my time with BAMS and have recently been involved in developing informal memoranda of understandings between BAMS and the worldwide modernist community. I am keen to be reconsidered for re-election in order to continue these contributions, to administratively support the new Chair by remaining Secretary over the next year thereby ensuring a straightforward handover, and to provide a core sense of stability as the Exec takes on new members.
Postgraduate representative nominations:
Polly Hember
Polly Hember is a first-year AHRC and TECHNE PhD student in Media Arts at Royal Holloway, University of London. Focusing on modernism and networks of intimacy, her research explores the POOL group and the work of Oswell Blakeston, Robert Herring and Kenneth Macpherson. Her research interests are in modernity, twentieth-century literature, mass culture, early cinema and technology.
Statement
My vision for the future of BAMS is a collaborative and generative one. The sense of community that BAMS has already fostered is hugely important: the sharing of relevant events, the regular Calls for Papers, and the encouragement to participate in writing for The Modernist Revieware hugely important. This, along with the opportunities to meet and engage with other modernist scholars at events like the 2018 Postgraduate Networking Day, contributes to a productive and dynamic research culture. These are all integral aspects to my vision of an inclusive and supportive community which I will help to develop.
As Postgraduate Representative, I am keen to organise more networking events and continue supporting New Work in Modernist Studies. Included within this, I hope to launch screenings of modernist films to encourage BAMS’ interdisciplinary outputs, as well as a monthly email round-up to members compiling and highlighting the vast array of information, events and opportunities that are available. My contribution will continue developing BAMS’ collaborative postgraduate community through proactively planning events and maintaining a strong, responsive online presence.
I am well suited to this role; I am a well-organised, highly motivated and enthusiastic individual. As Postgraduate Representative at Royal Holloway, I organise social events, organise annual research conferences and participate in committee meetings. Further to this, I run an online culture magazine(www.on-the-beat.co.uk), where I edit contributions and commission creative pieces – a skillset that I can bring to The Modernist Review.
Lillian Hingley
Lillian Hingley is a second-year doctoral student and Hertford College – English Faculty Scholar in Irish Literature at Oxford University. She is currently writing a thesis on how Theodor Adorno’s theory draws upon the modernist writers Ibsen, Joyce and Beckett. She is a convenor of the Oxford English Faculty’s Modern and Contemporary Literature Seminar and founded the TORCH-fundedOxford Critical Theory Network. Previously, she ran the Oxford Ulysses Reading Group,worked on various Widening Participation activities at Warwick University and was the founding editor of Warwick Uncanny: Journal of Literature, Theory and Modernity.
Statement
I envisage that BAMS could further strengthen its postgraduate support beyond the traditional academy to reflect the current job landscape. We need to confront the fact that many of the postgraduates engaged with BAMS will go onto “alternative-academic” jobs. Many in these careers will continue to research and contribute to modernist studies. Therefore, I propose that the organisation particularly focuses on helping postgraduates to explore and communicate their research through public events to better prepare their job applications for careers inside and outside academia. Through these events, they could collaborate with MA/PhD holders in “alt-ac” careers, which would also better engage potential BAMS members outside universities.
I can especially contribute organisational and logistical support to run event-planning workshops where groups of PhDs can try out and run activities for other attendees. I would accompany these activities by helping run informative sessions about event planning (from budgeting to social media) and workshops for the other attendees to develop their own activity ideas. This initial association with BAMS would give extra weight to projects that postgraduates might want to take back to their institutions and expand, especially for future funding applications.
As a convenor for the Oxford Modern and Contemporary Literature Seminar and Oxford Critical Theory Network, I have ample experience of promoting, organising and running modernist-related publications, websites and low-cost events. After working in Outreach for 5 years, I enjoy devising creative, accessible opportunities for other students and hope to offer this support to my fellow modernists as a PG rep.
Jasmine McCrory
Jasmine McCrory is currently a level one AHRC PhD student in English Literature at Queen’s University Belfast (QUB) and based in Sussex. Researching the private garden in modernist poetry, her primary interests span American literature, horticulture, botany, ecofeminisms and poststructuralism. Outside of the university sphere, Jasmine has worked as an intern for the Irish Association for American Studies and as an artificial language and emotional intelligence development intern with QUB’s Adoreboard. In the spring, she looks forward to giving a lecture and workshop series in collaboration with the National Trust on Virginia Woolf and horticulture.
Statement
My vision for the future of BAMS is informed by my own experience as a postgraduate who has a passion for research but has been disillusioned by academia. Undertaking a PhD is often intellectually, emotionally and financially draining, and in the current academic climate this is compounded by a paucity of secure jobs or funded opportunities, leading to increased competition amongst academics and thus researcher isolation within the community.
As postgraduate representative, I hope to build on the work already being undertaken by BAMS as a means of encouraging community spirit, support and cohesion amongst postgraduate modernists. My two-year vision includes the establishment of a postgraduate forum allowing members to share research, upcoming conferences and funding opportunities, as well as opportunities for collaboration with other academics. In addition to this, I would like to tailor training days to specifically aid new postgraduates with understanding how to publish their research in journals and how best to prepare for future careers (both inside and outside of academia), as well as organize more social events and retreats which encourage creative thinking and non-academic input. In doing so, I hope to increase postgraduate membership numbers, foster new opportunities for academic and creative collaboration, and thus inspire innovative research.
Whilst my previous experience as intern for various academic societies has provided me with communication and organisation skills that would aid me in a postgraduate position, it is my belief in a fair, equal and passionate postgraduate community that makes me the ideal candidate for this role.
Cécile Varry
Cécile Varry is currently a second-year PhD student at the Université Paris Diderot, where she teaches British and American poetry. Cécile’s research focuses on emotions in the work of T.S. Eliot – especially the themes of relief and consolation, and the feeling of being at home. Further to this, her research interests include visual modernism and emotional studies. She has a soft spot for Louis MacNeice and the Russian Ballet.
Statement
If elected as BAMS rep, I propose to focus on three points. The first of these is international outreach. By making events such as New Work in Modernist Studies open and attractive to young scholars outside the UK, we can strengthen BAMS’s position as a hub for Modernist Studies in Europe. Secondly, I propose to create new opportunities for the performance of modernist text, not only within academic conferences but also in pedagogical contexts and in events targeted at a wider public audience. This will involve setting up workshops to discuss the role of academics in giving voice to the cultural productions of the past. Finally, having been struck by how friendly, supportive and welcoming BAMS is as a community, I propose to build on this legacy, in particular by continuing discussion about mental health in postgraduate studies and by helping to strengthen the existing support networks.
My academic experience makes me well suited for this role. I am currently a postgraduate representative in my university, with responsibility for organising monthly transdisciplinary seminars and sitting on the doctoral scholarship panel. Due to this, I have a sound understanding of the challenges facing PhDs in the current academic climate, and want to continue supporting postgraduates by working with BAMS. Together with other representatives at Diderot, I am relaunching the faculty’s doctoral review, Work In Progress, after a two-year hiatus – a skill set that will allow me to help edit the newly established Modernist Review. I have also helped organise a mental health awareness campaign. Some of my other exciting projects for this year include setting up a research network around the study of emotions and starting a poetry salon.
You can tweet at me @CecileVarry!
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