Miss Rosalind Alderman is Postgraduate research student within English at the University of Southampton.
In 2011 I completed an MA in English at Southampton. During the MA I became increasingly interested in the interface between scientific ideas and literature, particularly poetry. This led to my PhD research, which I began in October 2012.
I am researching how ecological themes appear in recent and contemporary British and American poetry. In particular, I am interested in how poetry might challenge or supplement the models and practices of science, and whether poetry can offer an alternative means of inquiry to ecological science through its exploration of language. Southampton University is an ideal location for this research, and my supervisor Professor Peter Middleton has extensive knowledge of science in recent and contemporary poetry; his interests include ecology in the poetry of Gary Snyder.
As part of my research, I recently helped to organise the workshop ‘Poetry and Ecology' that took place at Southampton on 8 May 2013, and also assisted with managing the associated blog/ website. The event drew together a number of poets and academics with an interest in ecology and poetry, and it is hoped that there will be some follow-up events from this.