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Associate professor – Historical Studies

Phone: 639-6519

Email: e34bw@mun.ca

Office: AS332Q

 

Research Interests/Expertise 

Twentieth century British history, women and work, representations of gender on film and  television, gender and migration, women, literature, and amateur theatre

 

Teaching 

I primarily teach courses on modern European history, including the First and Second World Wars, fascism, and the Holocaust. I also teach more broadly with courses ranging from Tudor England to the global history of revolution, and representations of war on film.

 

Current Research

I am currently working on three research projects. The first is a monograph on the Welsh novelist Berta Ruck (forthcoming with University of Wales Press), a prolific romance novelist who chronicled the experiences of women in twentieth-century Britain. The second project is focused on the television series Bomb Girls and examines the ways bodies are used in war (literally) but also how they function as sites of emotional experience and memory in the series. The third project examines the roles of Governors Walter Davidson and Alexander Harris in managing the Newfoundland war effort in the First World War, specifically through their relationship with their British counterparts in Whitehall.

 

Selected Publications 

1) Monographs

• Berta Ruck. Under contract with University of Wales Press (Writers of Wales series).
• Women’s Amateur Theatre in Rural Britain, 1915-1945. Routledge (Gender and History Series), 2024.
• The Society for the Oversea Settlement of British Women, 1919-1964. Palgrave Macmillan, 2019.
• The Women’s Land Army in First World War Britain. Palgrave Macmillan, 2014.

 

2) Peer Reviewed Articles (since 2018)

• “‘New war, same old story:” Gender and War-related Trauma in ITV’s Home Fires.’ Journal of British Cinema and Television, vol. 20, no. 4 (2023): 460-480.
•  “The ‘Myth’ of Beaumont Hamel: Counter-Monumentality and Newfoundland Identity in Edward Riche’s Dedication.” Britain and the World, vol. 16, no. 1 (2023): 38-57.
•  “Freedom, Sincerity, and the Modern Woman in the Interwar Romances of Berta Ruck.” Journal of Popular Romance Studies, vol. 11, no. 1 (2022): 1-19.
•  “A Better England:’ Women’s Agricultural Labour and the National Association of Landswomen.” Agricultural History Review, vol. 69, no. 2 (2021): 255-273.
•  “Women’s Institutes Drama Groups and Shakespeare in Early Twentieth Century England, 1919-1939.” Women’s History Review, vol. 30, no. 7 (2021): 1201-1218.
• “Britishness and Otherness: Representing and Constructing Identity in BBC’s Land Girls.” Critical Studies in Television, vol. 14, no. 1 (2018): 1-16.
• “Spinsters, War Widows, and Wounded Soldiers: The Great War Novels of Berta Ruck.” Women’s History Review vol. 27, no .7 (2018): 1085-1102. Co-authored with Johnathan H. Pope