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Mr Alastair Dawson BA, MA

Postgraduate Researcher in Eighteenth-Century Literature

Mr Alastair Dawson's photo

Alastair Dawson is a Postgraduate Researcher in Eighteenth-Century Literature at the University Of Southampton.

I completed both my BA in English and French (2015) and subsequently my MA in Eighteenth-Century Studies (2016) at the University Of Southampton, culminating in a dissertation on the reception of French writer Louise d’Épinay’s educational works.  After a year working in university admissions, I returned in 2017 to pursue a PhD on the Cross-Channel representations of Women’s Education in Britain and France.  Since 2018, this has been supported by funding from the South, West and Wales Doctoral Training Partnership (SWW DTP).

You can follow Alastair on Twitter @C18thRamblings

Research interests

My research focuses on the cultural and literary transfer of ideas in Britain and France during the eighteenth century. My PhD work is on the cross-Channel representations of women’s education in Britain and France, 1750-1815. It seeks to demonstrate the significant involvement of women writers in a cross-Channel literary network of exchange, as well as their role in shaping and directing the educational discourse of their time. I explore the work of well-known theorists and educationalists such as Mary Wollstonecraft, Maria Edgeworth, and Stéphanie-Félicité de Genlis, as well as a number of lesser known women writers to reveal a female-led network that spans nations, cultures, and languages in the pursuit of educational advancement.

PhD Supervision

My thesis is entitled ‘Criss-Crossing the Channel: The Female Undercurrent of Women’s Educational Discourse in Eighteenth-Century British and French Literature, 1750-1815’ and is supervised by Dr Gillian Dow (Southampton) and Dr Jane Moore (Cardiff). It is supported by a Vice-Chancellor’s award (2017-2018) and the SWW DTP (2018-present).

During Semester 2 of the 2018-19, I taught on the first year English and Film module, Stage and Screen (now World Dramas).

Mr Alastair Dawson
Student Office, Faculty of Arts and Humanities, University of Southampton, Avenue Campus, Southampton. SO17 1BF United Kingdom
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