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The Department of Culture is pleased to announce four recently completed PhDs: Dr Marjan Shokouhi . The Nature/Culture Dichotomy in an Ecocritical Study of W.B. Yeats, Patrick Kavanagh, and Louis MacNeice. (Supervised by Drs  Alison Younger and Angela Smith ) Dr Akram Dik. Revisiting the Concept of Displacement: Representations of Home and Identity in Contemporary English Post-colonial Metropolitan Fiction (1956-1990). (Supervised by Drs  Kath Kerr-Koch and Geoff Nash ) Dr Darren Brooks. Rankin's Scotland: Scottish Crime Fiction and The Narration of Modern Scotland. (Supervised by Dr  Barry Lewis and Peter Dempsey ) Dr Danny Crew. Published Music as Political Research Tool in American Politics. (Supervised by Dr  Kevin Yuill and John Kefala-Kerr )

The English team has received feedback from the 2014 Research Excellence Framework (REF) sub-panel. In terms of publications, 'international excellence was evident in all areas, and there was the additional strength of world-leading achievement in dialect, language analysis and creative writing'. The impact of research carried out in English was deemed to be 'considerable in terms of reach and significance', with work 'embedded in and committed to enriching its local community'. The full REF results can be found here . Sunderland was one of only seven universities in the UK to enter every member of its English team for the REF.

Dr Laura O’Brien , lecturer in modern European history in the Department of Culture, will be giving a History Lab talk on Thursday 19th March at 5pm in Priestman 013 . ‘Drawing revolution: political caricature in nineteenth-century France’, is based on her research into French political caricature in the first half of the nineteenth century. This is also the subject of her forthcoming book, The Republican Line: Caricature and French Republican Identity, 1830-52 which will be published by Manchester University Press in July. All are welcome to attend the talk – it’s free for members of the History Lab and £2 for guests.

Professor Michael Meyer The paper at the English Research Seminar on Wednesday 11th March 2015 will be given by Professor Michael Meyer from the University of Koblenz. Michael's talk is entitled 'The intermedial framing of narrative fiction'. He will explore the interplay between visual illustration and verbal representation as interdependent framing devices. The examples under scrutiny (Milne, Byatt, Ackroyd) offer multiple framings and frame-breaks, provoking reflections on representation, media, and interpretation. The conclusion will address the potential of using intermedial framing in the classroom. All staff and students are welcome to the talk, which starts at 5pm in Priestman 313 .

Walter Scott by Henry Raeburn and Robert Burns by Alexander Nasmyth Two department members spoke at the recent Burns’ Night celebrations organized by the Spectral Visions Press team. Head of Culture Steve Watts gave a talk called ‘My Native Land: An Introduction to the Borders’ which drew on geographical, anthropological and biographical elements to provide an interdisciplinary perspective on Walter Scott’s The Lay of the Last Minstrel . Colin Younger ’s talk on ‘Burns and the Supernatural’ explored the Gothic motifs present in Burns’ most celebrated works. A full account of the evening can be found here . 

Dr Angela Smith has co-edited a collection of essays exploring various aspects of feminism and femininity in a twenty-first-century context. The articles address a number of contemporary issues: from the way in which women are represented in make-over shows, fashion blogs, and 'selfies' to the wider discourses that frame such representations, such as gym culture, pop culture, film and literature, as well as television sitcoms. Drawing on feminist theory and the emergence of 'fourth-wave feminism', this collection concludes that there is still much work to be done in terms of gaining gender equality in society. Nally, Claire and Smith, Angela (eds) 2015.   Twenty-first Century Feminism :  Forming and Performing Femininity . London: Palgrave Macmillan.