Dr Emma Liggins
Reader
My profile
Biography
Academic and professional qualifications
I did my BA in English at the University of Manchester, then an MA in Victorian Literature at the University of Leeds. My PhD thesis, ‘Representations of the Dead Body in Victorian Fiction’ was also completed at the University of Leeds.
Other academic service (administration and management)
Co-Director of the Long Nineteenth Century Network
Expert reviewer for external funding bodies
I regularly review books and articles for Women’s History Review, Literature & History and Women’s Writing. I have also read manuscripts on Gothic Literary Studies for the University of Wales Press.
Interests and expertise
I specialise in Victorian and modernist women’s writing, particularly the ghost story, sensation fiction, New Woman fiction, and writing of the First World War. Some of my work focuses on Gothic literature, haunting, and the Edwardian supernatural. I’m committed to producing interdisciplinary research, working at the intersection of literature, history and heritage studies. I’ve recently started researching Victorian mourning practices and the development of cemeteries. I’m also interested in periodicals of the long nineteenth century, including women’s magazines from the 1890s to the 1920s, and the neglected Strand Magazine.
Projects
From February to July 2018 I was involved in a project at the National Trust property Speke Hall, Liverpool, called The Gothic at Speke: Romance and Revival. I co-curated an exhibition and gave a public lecture on Victorian ghost stories.
Teaching
Undergraduate teaching
I lead the Level 5 unit Nineteenth-Century Writing to Modernism and have also taught on Making the Nineteenth Century, Approaches to Narrative, Fin-de-Siecle Literature and Culture, Approaches to Drama and Enlightenment to Romanticism.
Postgraduate teaching
I teach on the MA in English Studies, and have lead the unit The Rise of the Gothic. I also contribute to the new unit Nineteenth-Century Literature and Culture.
Supervision
I have supervised nine PhD students to completion, working on projects on female Gothic, nineteenth-century feminist periodicals, decadence, queer theory, contagion and the desert romance. I am happy to supervise projects on the long nineteenth century and modernism, particularly those on women’s writing, short stories, periodicals or the supernatural.
Research outputs
Victorian sensation fiction, the New Woman, nineteenth-century Gothic, women’s ghost stories, George Gissing, fin-de-siecle and modernist women’s writing, women’s magazines 1880s to 1940s.
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Books (authored/edited/special issues)
Liggins, E. (2020) The Haunted House in Women’s Ghost Stories Gender, Space and Modernity, 1850-1945. Palgrave Macmillan.
Liggins, E. (2016) Odd women?: Spinsters, lesbians and widows in British women's fiction, 1850s-1930s.
Liggins, E., Maunder, A., Robbins, R., Liggins, E.J. (2010) The British Short Story. Palgrave MacMillan.
Liggins, E. (2006) George Gissing, the working woman, and urban culture. Ashgate.
Liggins, E.J. (2001) Feminist readings of Victorian popular texts. Ashgate Publishing.
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Chapters in books
Liggins, E. (2023) 'The room I sit in: Women's refashioning of the drawing-room in fin-de-siecle and modernist writing.' A Space of Their Own Women, Writing and Place 1850-1950. Routledge,
Liggins, E. (2017) 'The legacy of Lucy Snowe: Reconfiguring spinsterhood and the Victorian family in inter-war women's writing.' Charlotte Brontë: Legacies and afterlives. pp. 164-181.
Liggins, E. (2017) '‘Women of true respectability?’ investigating the london work-girl, 1880–1900.' Women and Work Culture: Britain C.1850-1950. pp. 89-106.
Nelson, L., Groom, N.R., Potrac, P. (2016) 'Introduction.' Learning in Sports Coaching Theory and Application. Routledge,
Liggins, E. (2015) 'Beyond the haunted house? Modernist women's ghost stories and the troubling of modernity.' British Women Short Story Writers. pp. 32-49.
Liggins, E.J. (2015) 'Beyond the Haunted House? Modernist Women's Ghost Stories and the Troubling of Modernity.' British Women Short Story Writers The New Woman to Now. Edinburgh University Press,
Liggins, E.J. (2013) 'At High Pressure? The Spinster and the Costs of Independence in George Gissing's Short Stories, 1894-1903.' In Huguet, C., James, S.J. (ed.) George Gissing and the Woman Question. Ashgate Publishing Company, pp. 69-84.
Liggins, E.J. (2011) 'Having a Good Time Single? The Bachelor Girl in 1890s New Woman fiction.' In Gavin, A.E., Oulton, C. (ed.) Writing Women of the Fin de Siècle: Authors of Change. Palgrave MacMillan, pp. 98-110.
Liggins, E.J. (2006) 'Citizens of London? Working Women, Leisure and Urban Space in Gissing's 1890s fiction.' In Spiers, J. (ed.) Gissing and the City: cultural crisis and the making of books in late Victorian England. Palgrave MacMillan, pp. 100-108.
Liggins, E.J. (2005) 'Her Appearance in Public: Sexual Danger, Urban Space and the Working Woman.' In Ryle, M.H., Taylor, J.B. (ed.) George Gissing: Voices of the Unclassed. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., pp. 29-46.
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Journal articles
Liggins, E. (2022) '“Meddling with Sorcery”: Hypnotism, the Occult and the Return of Forsaken Women in the 1890s Ghost Stories of Lettice Galbraith.' Women's Writing, 29(2) pp. 177-195.
Brennan, Z., Liggins, E., Wisker, G. (2022) 'Introduction: Spiritualism and the Supernatural, 1870–1925.' Women's Writing, 29(2) pp. 153-160.
Liggins, E. (2021) 'Heholt, Ruth, Catherine Crowe: Gender, Genre and Radical Politics. London: Routledge, 2021. 215 pp..' Nineteenth-Century Gender Studies, 17(2)
Brennan, Z., Liggins, E., Wisker, G. (2021) 'Introduction.' Women's Writing, 28(4) pp. 447-452.
Liggins, E. (2020) 'The woman reader and what she wanted.' Victorian Periodicals Review, 53(4) pp. 611-615.
Liggins, E. (2019) 'Visualising the unseen: Supernatural stories and illustration in the strand.' Victorian Periodicals Review, 52(2) pp. 365-387.
Liggins, E., Vuohelainen, M. (2019) 'Introduction: Reassessing the Strand magazine , 1891-1918.' Victorian Periodicals Review, 52(2) pp. 221-234.
Liggins, E. (2018) 'The “Sordid Story” of an Unwanted Child: Militancy, Motherhood and Abortion in Elizabeth Robins’ Votes for Women! and Way Stations.' Women's Writing, 25(3) pp. 347-361.
Liggins, E. (2014) 'Not an ordinary ladies' paper: Work, motherhood, and temperance rhetoric in the woman's signal, 1894-1899.' Victorian Periodicals Review, 47(4) pp. 613-630.
Liggins, E. (2013) 'Gendering the Spectral Encounter at the Fin de Siècle: Unspeakability in Vernon Lee’s Supernatural Stories.' Gothic Studies, 15(2) pp. 37-52.
Liggins, E. (2012) 'The modern spinster's lot and female sexuality in ella Hepworth Dixon's one doubtful hour.' Women's Writing, 19(1) pp. 5-22.
Liggins, E. (2007) 'Feminisms.' Year's Work in Critical and Cultural Theory, 15(1) pp. 240-257.
Liggins, E. (2007) '''The Life of a Bachelor Girl in the Big City'': Selling the Single Lifestyle to Readers of Woman and the Young Woman in the 1890s.' Victorian Periodicals Review, 40(3) pp. 216-238.
Liggins, E. (2004) 'Her mercenary spirit: women, money and marriage in Mary Elizabeth Braddon's 1870s fiction.' Women's Writing, 11(1) pp. 73-88.
Liggins, E. (2000) 'Writing against the “husband-fiend”: Syphilis and male sexual vice in the new woman novel.' Women's Writing, 7(2) pp. 175-195.
Liggins, E. (2000) 'Writing against the “husband-fiend”: syphilis and male sexual vice in the new woman novel.' Women's Writing, 7(2) pp. 175-195.
Liggins, E.J. (2000) 'With a Dead Child in her Lap: Bad Mothers and infant mortality in George Egerton's Discords.' Literature and History, 9(2) pp. 17-36.
Liggins, E. (1997) 'The evil days’ of the female murderer: Subverted marriage plots and the avoidance of scandal in the victorian sensation novel.' Journal of Victorian Culture, 2(1) pp. 27-41.
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Non-peer reviewed articles / reviews