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Doctor of Philosophy English Literature 2013
Manchester Metropolitan University
MA by Directed Research English Literature (Distinction) 2007
University of Liverpool
BA (Hons) English Language and Literature (First) 2006
University of Liverpool
Residential Halls Tutor 2009-2010
Owens Park, University of Manchester
Library Assistant 2008-2010
University of Manchester Library
Reading Project Facilitator 2007
Liverpool Reads
Front of House Volunteer 2005-2007
The Reader Organisation
Scribe 2011-present
Learner Development Service, Manchester Metropolitan University
In 2012-2013, I taught second year unit ‘Nineteenth-Century Writing to Modernism’. In 2013-2014, I taught third year unit ‘Fin-de-Siècle Literature and Culture’. I also delivered a guest lecture on T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land in January 2014 for the second year 'History of Text Transmission' unit.
In 2014-2015 I taught on 'Fin-de-Siecle Literature and Culture', second year Creative Writing unit 'History of Text Transmission', as well as 'Nineteenth-Century Writing to Modernism' from the Spring term.
In December 2014, I delivered a guest lecture on Hilary Mantel's Bring Up the Bodies for the third year 'Writing in Genres' unit, which is available as a video here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MyAM5P3VLZ0&feature=youtu.be
I recently completed a Postgraduate Certificate in Academic Practice (PGC AP) and I am a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.
Doing a PhD: A Guide to the Proposal and Writing Process Campus Days Talk (June 25, 2015)
Continuing Professional Development Writing Skills for Researchers unit (February 3 to February 24, 2015)
http://www2.mmu.ac.uk/english/courses/short/creative/#d.en.20167
My PhD thesis challenged current readings of Hilary Mantel’s writing that privilege an origin as the fetishized natural site or location of meaning. In particular, I problematised material within the academy and journalism that tethers Mantel’s fiction and memoir to Gothicism/historicism, autobiography or the body, as centres that anchor a singular meaning. Using the writings of both Jacques Derrida and Jean-Luc Nancy on ellipsis, my thesis advanced on the possibilities of the elliptical for deconstructive practice by considering the resistance of Mantel’s work to any conceptual solidity. Ultimately, the thesis concluded with my own interpretation of her texts as always already elliptically circling the west, as a troubled, yet hallowed, locus throughout her implied corpus.
I am currently rewriting my thesis as a book and developing journal articles born from my three years as a student; I recently published an interview I conducted with Mantel in 2012 in the journal Textual Practice.
Privileging the Unseen and the Writing of Hilary Mantel (June 9, 2015 and September 30, 2015)
A symposium on the work of Hilary Mantel and an evening reading delivered by the author herself; co-organised with Dr Ginette Carpenter, Helen Darby and Jim Moore (IHSSR, MMU)
London Conference in Critical Thought stream organiser Jean-Luc Nancy in Fragments (stream presented at Royal Holloway University of London, Egham, UK, June 6 and June 7, 2013)
A collaboration with LCCT Co-operative and two MMU postgraduates (Leda Channer and Martin Kratz) including assessing abstracts, writing the programme and chairing panels
MMU Philosophy Co-operative founding member
A collaboration with MMU undergraduates and postgraduates to organise informative yet accessible talks about aspects of philosophy (2011-present)
E. Pollard (2019). Origin and Ellipsis in the Writing of Hilary Mantel An Elliptical Dialogue with the Thinking of Jacques Derrida. Routledge Studies in Contemporary Literature.
E. Pollard, B. Schoene (2018). British Literature in Transition, 1980–2000 Accelerated Times. E. Pollard, B. Schoene. Cambridge University Press.
E. Pollard, G. Carpenter (2018). Hilary Mantel Contemporary Critical Perspectives. Bloomsbury Academic.
E. Pollard (2023). “He was struck out. Deleted”: we need to talk about Wesley in Nicola Barker’s Behindlings. Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction. 64(1), pp.1-12.
E. Pollard Building Compassion Capacity: Chester Retold and Storyhouse, a Case Study. Journal of Perspectives in Applied Academic Practice. 6(3), pp.75-82.
E. Pollard Back to the future: everything you wish you’d asked Derrida about ChatGPT when you had the chance!. Cultural Studies - Critical Methodologies.
EJ. Pollard (2015). ‘Mind what gap?’: an interview with Hilary Mantel. Textual Practice. 29(6), pp.1035-1044.
EJ. Pollard (2015). Mind what gap?: An interview with Hilary Mantel. Textual Practice. 29(6), pp.1035-1044.
EJ. Pollard ‘When the Reservoir Comes’: Drowned Villages, Community and Nostalgia in Contemporary British Fiction. C21 Literature: Journal of 21st-Century Writings. 5(3),
E. Pollard, B. Schoene (2018). Introduction. In: British Literature in Transition, 1980–2000. Cambridge University Press, pp.1-22.
E. Pollard (2018). ‘Between the Real and the Imagined’: Hilary Mantel’s Craft. In: Hilary Mantel: Contemporary Critical Perspectives. pp.147-155.
E. Pollard (2018). Making History Otherwise: Learning to Talk and The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher. In: Hilary Mantel: Contemporary Critical Perspectives. pp.41-56.
E. Pollard, G. Carpenter (2018). ‘What Cannot Be Fixed, Measured, Confined’: The Mobile Texts of Hilary Mantel. In: Hilary Mantel: Contemporary Critical Perspectives. pp.1-12.
E. Pollard (2011). ‘The revenant is going to come’: Sex and Rottenness in the Communities of Hilary Mantel and Nicola Barker. In: The Evil Body. BRILL, pp.141-151.
S. Powell, E. Pollard, O. McCabe (2022). Hypocrisy or Authentic Agitation: Reflections on Addressing the HE Awarding Gap.
FORTHCOMING ‘Haptics and Optics in Ali Smith’s How to Be Both (2014)’, joint paper with Martin Kratz, What Happens Now: 21st Century Writing in English, University of Lincoln (June 2016)
‘Mad and Bad Bodies at the Fin de Siècle and the New Millennium’ (paper presented at Talking Bodies: Identity, Sexuality, Representation, Chester, UK, April 1, 2015)
'"It goes on in the reader's mind" (Mantel 2012): The epiphany of ellipsis in the writing of Hilary Mantel' (paper presented at What Happens Now: 21st Century Writing in English, Lincoln, UK, July 14, 2014)
'"We are truly missing something": If Jean-Luc Nancy read Hilary Mantel's Bring Up the Bodies' (paper presented at International Conference on Narrative, Manchester, UK, June 28, 2013) – a part of a collaborative, and successful, panel proposal
'"We are truly missing something": If Jean-Luc Nancy read Hilary Mantel’s Bring Up the Bodies' (paper presented at London Conference in Critical Thought, Egham, UK, June 6, 2013)
'"Trust me, I'm telling you my life story": Queer Sisterhood in the memoirs of Jeanette Winterson and Jackie Kay' (paper presented at Queer Sisterhood in Contemporary Women's Writing: A Postgraduate Symposium, Belfast, Northern Ireland, February 29, 2012)
'"Are you local?" – Alienation in The League of Gentlemen' (paper presented at MMU Philosophy Co-operative, Manchester, UK, November 21, 2011)
'"But at second sight the words seemed not so simple" (Woolf 1929): Thickening and rotting hysteria in the writing of Hilary Mantel and Virginia Woolf' (paper presented at Contradictory Woolf: 21st Annual International Virginia Woolf Conference, Glasgow, Scotland, June 10, 2011)
'"The revenant is going to come": Sex and rottenness in the communities of Hilary Mantel and Nicola Barker' (paper presented at Evil, Women and the Feminine: 3rd Global Conference, Warsaw, Poland, May 14, 2011)
'"I got serious": Jeanette Winterson and parody as catharsis' (paper presented at Postgraduate Seminar Series, Liverpool, UK, February 2, 2007)
'"Privileging the Unseen": A one-day symposium on the writing of Hilary Mantel' (series of papers presented at the International Anthony Burgess Foundation, Manchester, UK, June 9, 2015) - inaugural academic symposium on Mantel's work co-organised with Dr Ginette Carpenter
Assisting at International Conference on Narrative, MMU (June 2013)
Jean-Luc Nancy in Fragments (stream presented at London Conference in Critical Thought, Egham, UK, June 6 and June 7, 2013) – a collaboration with LCCT Co-operative and two MMU postgraduates (Leda Channer and Martin Kratz) including assessing abstracts, writing the programme and chairing panels
Assisting at one-day conference 'Further Adventures in Wonderland: The Afterlife of Alice' (Manchester, December 2011) – including assessing abstracts, manning the registration desk and chairing a panel
Frontiers: A Journal of Women's Studies (The Ohio State University)
Research Grants
Institute of Humanities and Social Science Research, MMU (2014) (£1300) to organise and deliver:
'"Privileging the Unseen": A one-day symposium on the writing of Hilary Mantel' (June 2015) and 'An Evening with Hilary Mantel' (September 2015)
Contemporary Women's Writing Association, small conference grant (2014) (£200)
Conference Attendance Funding
Two MMU Faculty awards for conference attendance (2011) (£500 and £250)
PhD Studentship
AHRC Block Grant Partnership (2010-2013) (£45,000)
School of English Bursary
MA scholarship awarded on basis of academic merit, University of Liverpool (2006) (£1500)
University Undergraduate Scholarship
Awarded for 1st and 2nd year examination results, University of Liverpool (2004-2005) (£50 and £50)
An Evening with Hilary Mantel A reading with one of Britain's most accomplished authors for academics, students and members of the general public, MMU (September 30, 2015)
http://www.humanityhallows.co. uk/an-evening-with-hilary- mantel/
Viva Survivors Podcast Interviewed by Dr Nathan Ryder (August 10, 2015)
http://viva-survivors.com/ 2015/08/episode-45-dr-eileen- pollard/
Continuing Professional Development Writing Skills for Researchers unit (February 3 to February 24, 2015)
http://www2.mmu.ac.uk/english/courses/short/creative/#d.en.20167
Schools Liaison Training 'The Monstrous Nineteenth Century', Xaverian College (February 13, 2015)
Reading Group Facilitator Arley Hall, Northwich - Giving Up the Ghost and Learning to Talk by Hilary Mantel (June 6, 2014)
'Community' (stand-up comedy routine presented at Bright Club Manchester 7: Obsession, Manchester, UK, June 24, 2011)
http://www.manchesterbeacon.org/events/view/190/Bright-Club-Manchester-7---Obsession
Evelyn E. Jardine Prize
Highest 3rd year literature student, University of Liverpool (2006)
Kathleen M. Irvine Prize
Awarded for 2nd year essay, University of Liverpool (2005)
Contemporary Women's Writing Association member (2014)
Higher Education Academy fellow (2015)
Society of Authors member (2015)