Earlier this year, we announced a new summer Fellowship programme aimed specifically at early career researchers. In August we will welcome three residential Visiting Fellows working on women’s writing of the long eighteenth century. These Fellowships have been made possible by a generous donation from the Ardeola Charitable Trust. We are delighted to introduce our three Visiting Fellows for this year:
Dr Sabina Akram (Deirdre Le Faye Fellowship)
@SabinaAkram
At Chawton House, I will research the appeal and adaptability of Jane Austen in contemporary South Asian fiction and examine the impact of colonisation in these texts, asking why Austen’s works resonate with South Asian readers. I am interested in how the structure of the British Empire influenced South Asian culture, and how the British Empire and postcolonialism manifest within the plot, language and themes of these contemporary texts.
Dr Alison Daniell
@Allie1Spencer
The Chawton Fellowship will allow me to begin work on adapting my PhD thesis into a monograph. The aim is to produce a book that marries the technical legal aspects of coverture and the lived experience of wives with an analysis of women’s fiction of the period. It will analyse how women at different points during the eighteenth century processed the uniquely feminine experience of coverture in their fiction and the degree to which this supported or disrupted the current legal narratives surrounding the doctrine.
Charlotte Goodge
@GoodgeCharlotte
While at Chawton, I will consult a breadth of items, from hand-painted etchings and periodicals to manuscript letters and treatises on female health. This material will contribute significantly to my current doctoral research on understandings and depictions of female corpulence in the long eighteenth century, as presented in contemporary medical, literary, popular and visual culture. Chawton’s archival items will prove especially enlightening for my thesis chapter on ‘Female ‘Fatness’ as Spectacle’; this chapter will focus on the public presence and perceived persona of the ‘fat’ woman, particularly in terms of her social mobility.
We would like to congratulate our Fellows. We hope that they have an enriching experience at Chawton House, and look forward to meeting them and sharing their fascinating research with our audiences as it progresses.