Email: [email protected]

Telephone: +44 (0) 121 204 4806

Office: NW922F

I am a Senior Lecturer in English Language and Literature based in the School of Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH). 

I am a stylistician and applied linguist with interests in cognitive poetics, and specifically the application of cognitive grammar for literary analysis, reader response research, re-reading and contemporary fiction. 

Current

• 08/2023 - present: Programme Director for MA English
• 08/2022 - present: Overall Director for Postgraduate English, Languages and Applied Linguistics programmes
• 09/2020 - present: Co-Director of the Aston Stylistics Research Group
• 11/2020 - present: Member of the College Curriculum Development Sub-Committee (CDSC)

Previous

• 02/2022 - 08/2022: Research leave
• 01/2020 - 02/2022: Programme Director for Undergraduate English
• 09/2021 - 02/2022: Placements Coordinator
• 01/2020 - 08/2021: Senior Tutor
• 09/2019 - 08/2020: Placement Coordinator
• 01/2019 - 08/2019: Exams Officer
• 09/2018 - 08/2019: Staff-Student Committee Lead
• 09/2018 - 01/2019: Learning and Teaching Director

Current

• Samuel Keeler: Ecostylistics and climate fiction (main supervisor)
• Ahcene Adjeb: Literary education in Algeria (associate supervisor)
• Isabella Wetson: The pedagogical application of Cognitive Grammar (associate supervisor)
• Mel Wardle-Woodend: Poetry and wellbeing (associate supervisor)

Completed

• 2024, Paula Ghintuiala: The split self in telecinematic stylistics (main supervisor)
• 2022, Megan Mansworth: Possible worlds theory and readers’ emotions (associate supervisor)

I would be interested in supervising doctoral research projects in:

• Cognitive stylistics;
• Linguistic approaches to contemporary fiction;
• Re-reading; 
• Reader response studies;
• Empirical studies of literature.

Please get in touch via email if you are interested in working with me on any of the above.

• November 2024, Principal Investigator. Awarded £7300 by Aston's Pump Priming Programme to support a project on the narrative structures of sleep stories. 
• May 2021, Co-Investigator. Awarded £4000 seed-corn funding by the Aston Institute for Forensic Linguistics to support an exploratory study on ‘Forensic Stylistics’, with Tim Grant and Marcello Giovanelli (Aston University) and Matthew Voice (University of Warwick).
• Dec 2021, Co-Investigator. Awarded £5520 by the Aston Impact Fund 2021-22. Contemporary Cognitive Stylistics for Secondary English Teachers.
• July 2019, Co-Investigator. Awarded £1250 from the Centre for Critical Inquiry into Society and Culture (CCISC) at Aston University to facilitate two workshops for local secondary school teachers with the aim of disseminating some of the latest innovative research in cognitive stylistics to education professionals. 
• Sep 2016. COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology) covered the expenses relating to accommodation, travel and workshop attendance at the Max Planck Institute, Frankfurt, as part of IGEL’s (the International Society for the Empirical Study of Literature) ‘Empirical Research Methods for the Humanities’ 3-day training school.
• Sep 2010- Sep 2013: Teaching Fellowship, funded PhD scholarship. University of Nottingham.

I teach across both the undergraduate and postgraduate programmes. Current undergraduate modules include:

• Reading & Society
• Language and Style

Current postgraduate modules include:

• Researching English
• Reading Contemporary Fiction
• Cognitive Poetics

I have previously taught on the following modules at Aston:

• Written Text Analysis
• Introduction to Discourse Analysis
• Cognition and Style
• Literary Genres
• Marriage in Literature
• Creative Writing 
• Qualitative Research Methods

• Treasurer for the International Association of Literary Semantics
• Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (HEA)
• Member of the Poetics and Linguistics Association
• Member of the International Society for the Empirical Study of Literature
• Member of the International Association of Literary Semantics