Graduate Student, English
Thesis Title: "The Gothic Double in the Comtemporary Graphic Novel"
|
Dr Deborah Longworth
|
About
My doctoral research was funded by a three-year School Scholarship and examines the role of the Gothic double as articulated within the contemporary graphic novel. Discussing representations, interpretations and subversions of the Gothic double, the analysis applies a synthesised theoretical framework of the psychoanalytical double and literary double to five key works from three canonical creators: Neil Gaiman, Frank Miller and Alan Moore. The discussion is divided into three sections in order to focus on three recurring motifs in the image-text hybrid of the contemporary graphic novel. Firstly, a discussion of superheroes, SF and the Gothic double aims to explore how works such as The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and Batman: The Dark Knight Returns combine innovative approaches to the superhero with direct reference to SF and the motif of the Gothic double. Section two offers a reading of how Neil Gaiman’s A Game of You subtly explores complex issues of gender and sexuality in relation to the Gothic double. Section three discusses the urban Gothic, exploring the dualistic presentation of the city in both From Hell and Sin City alongside an interpretation of how each text approaches the issue of prostitution. Throughout, the discussion focuses on the analysis of narrative elements including structure, characterisation and genre.
I have gained five years of teaching experience as a postgraduate seminar tutor at the University of Birmingham and have completed an Associate Pathway Module in Learning and Teaching in HE, resulting in the award of ‘Associate’ status of the HEA. My area of teaching expertise is nineteenth, twentieth and twenty-first century English literature and cultural theory. My actual teaching experience covers a much wider area, including: medieval poetry, Elizabethan drama, eighteenth-century satirical poetry, Victorian literature, Gothic literature, modernist poetry and prose, and postmodern literature. I have also taught a number of theoretical and critical approaches to literature and culture, including: Marxism and ideology, the Frankfurt School, post-colonialism, historicism and new criticism, modernism and postmodernism, psychoanalysis and theories of the mind, feminist theory and gender theory. I have led seminars on a variety of first and second year English Literature and Cultural Theory modules and delivered a guest lecture entitled ‘Writing a Graphic Novel’ to two second year cohorts of the B.A. English with Creative Writing degree.
I co-founded the Birmingham Journal of Literature and Language (BJLL) and was co-General Editor for the first two issues, 2007-09. I have published several book reviews in the Journal of Popular Culture and the Journal of American Culture, and have four articles forthcoming in 2011 in the following edited collections: Gothic Science Fiction: Critical Essays on Post-1980s SF, Alan Moore and the Gothic Tradition, Investigating Heroes: Truth, Justice and Quality TV and Comment Rêver la Science-Fiction à Present? I have presented my work at academic institutions including Northampton, Lancaster, Sheffield, Birmingham, Cerisy-la-Salle and Ohio, and before beginning my doctoral research I completed a B.A. in English with Music and an M.A. in Text and Book, both at the University of Birmingham.
