Jonathan Godshaw Memel

My research asks how literary depictions of education inform understandings of form, identity and culture in the Victorian period. I consider the writing of Thomas Hardy in my National Trust/Great Western Research-funded doctoral project and place new emphasis on such topics as the professionalization and training of schoolmistresses, the working-class movement for liberal education, educational architecture and rural forms of education.

I am committed to the idea of public engagement in universities and in 2014 was appointed Champion for Public Engagement with Postgraduate Research as part of the University of Exeter's RCUK-funded Catalyst project. Since February 2016 I have been expanding public engagement activity at the Centre for Victorian Studies as AHRC Cultural Engagement Fellow.