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Miss Jeni Buckley 

Postgraduate research student

Miss Jeni Buckley's photo

Miss Jeni Buckley is Postgraduate research student within English at the University of Southampton.

In 2007 I acquired a first class BA in English Literature from the University of Hertfordshire. After completing my MA in Eighteenth-Century Studies at the University of Southampton in 2010, I decided to stay on for my PhD research. The links between Chawton House Library and the Centre for Eighteenth-Century Studies were obvious incentives. However, I primarily chose Southampton due to the expertise of my supervisor, Professor Emma Clery.

Research interests

My research is on the discourse of maternal imagination - that is, the notion that a pregnant woman could alter the development of her foetus with the power of her thoughts and feelings. I argue that this discourse dispersed throughout the course of the eighteenth century and made its presence felt in cultural debates concerning man-midwifery, politeness, domestic hierarchy, gender roles, poetic theory and the philosophy of creative imagination.

Conference papers

I have presented several papers on the topic of my research at international conferences:

BSECS Annual Conference, Jan 2011, University of Oxford - ‘Eliza Haywood, Pregnancy and Credit' as part of the University of Southampton Panel ‘Sensible Behaviour: themes of desire, manners, and taste in eighteenth-century music and fiction'

Sensualising Deformity: Communication and Constructions of Monstrous Embodiment, June 2012, University of Edinburgh - ‘Defining Maternal Imagination: Mary Toft and her Physicians'

The Rude Body: Postgraduate and early career historian Conference, Sept 2012, University of Essex -  ‘"The mercy of the big-bellied lady": Pregnant Imagination in Novels from the Mid Eighteenth Century'

BSECS Annual Conference, Jan 2013, University of Oxford: ‘Credit and Credibility: Maternal Imagination and Expensive Pregnancies in The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle and Pamela in Her Exalted Condition'

Grants and Scholarships

I have a strong history of attracting funding for my projects. Most recently I received an ESSE (European Society for the Study of English) research bursary in April 2013. This bursary enabled me to visit the Hunterian Special Collection at the University of Glasgow to conduct important research regarding Mary Toft, the woman who claimed to give birth to rabbits. I was also awarded a BSECS  (British Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies) Postgraduate Bursary in order to travel to the annual BSECS conference (Jan 2013). I have also benefited from departmental and faculty funds from both the University of Southampton and the Southampton Centre for Eighteenth-Century Studies, which have enabled research trips and conference attendance. In addition to acquiring a Teaching Assistantship for my doctoral degree, I was also awarded a Sue Wilson Scholarship during my masters degree. I have also been successful in securing funding for SPECS (Southampton Postgraduate Eighteenth-Century Society), the bi-monthly meetings of which I chaired during 2012-13.

During the three years of my PhD, I have taught undergraduate modules spanning a wide range of English literature, from medieval to modern. Although I specialise in the area of eighteenth-century studies, I enjoy helping first-year students acquire foundational skills and introducing them to theoretical approaches. My experience in this area has been invaluable when leading taster subject sessions on the Access to Southampton programme, which is committed to recruiting talented students who have the potential to succeed at the University regardless of their educational or social background. As a seminar tutor, I have also had the pleasure of discovering and directing second and third-year students' research interests.  Working as a freelance proofreader with postgraduate international students on the subjects of ‘Percy Shelley and Platonic Love' and ‘Free Indirect Speech in the Work of Jane Austen' has also aided my appreciation of studying literature from a non-native perspective.

Miss Jeni Buckley
Faculty of Arts and Humanities University of Southampton Avenue Campus Highfield Southampton SO17 1BF United Kingdom
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