Dr Minna Vuohelainen
Senior Lecturer in English Literature Programme Leader, MA English/ MA History and Culture/ MA Popular Culture
I joined Edge Hill in spring 2007, having previously taught at Birkbeck, University of London and at the University of Derby. I have in the past taught English Literature from the Renaissance to the present day, as well as twentieth-century European Literature. The majority of my teaching now focuses on the nineteenth century. On the Department’s postgraduate programme, I am Programme Leader for the MAs in English, History and Culture, and Popular Culture, and am involved in teaching and supervision on these MAs.
I have a strong commitment to interdisciplinarity, which is derived from my past studies and research. I took my first degree in International History at the London School of Economics and Political Science. From there, I went to King’s College London to complete an MA in English Literature, specialising in turn-of-the-century fiction. My PhD Thesis, for Birkbeck, University of London, was on ‘The Popular Fiction of Richard Marsh: Literary Production, Genre, Audience’. My research focuses on nineteenth-century literature in its social and cultural contexts, particularly the fiction and print culture of the fin de siècle. I am particularly interested in turn-of-the-century popular culture and the dynamics of the popular fiction market of the time, which I have explored through a study of Richard Marsh (1857-1915), an under-researched popular author of gothic, sensation, crime and romantic fiction. I would be interested to hear from students wishing to conduct research in nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century literature and culture.
Research
- Nineteenth-century fiction in its cultural and social contexts
- The fin de siècle
- Nineteenth-century print culture
- Nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century popular culture
- Gothic and crime fiction
- The fiction and career of ‘Richard Marsh’
Publications
Selected Publications
- Annotated scholarly edition of Richard Marsh's novel The Goddess: A Demon (Kansas City: Valancourt Books, 2010).
- ‘“Cribb’d, Cabined, and Confined”: Claustrophobia in Richard Marsh’s Urban Gothic Fiction’, Journal of Literature and Science, 3.1 (2010), 23-36.
- • ‘Richard Marsh’, Victorian Fiction Research Guide 35 (Canterbury Christ Church University, 2009).
- Annotated scholarly edition of Richard Marsh's novel The Beetle: A Mystery (Kansas City: Valancourt Books, 2008).
- ‘“Tales and Adventures”: G.A. Henty’s Union Jack and the Competitive World of Publishing for Boys in the 1880s’, Journal of Popular Narrative Media, 1.2 (2008), 183-96.
- 'Distorting the Genre, Defining the Audience, Detecting the Author: Richard Marsh's "For Debt" (1902)', Clues: A Journal of Detection, 25.4 (summer 2007), 17-26.
- ‘Richard Marsh’s The Beetle (1897): a Late-Victorian Popular Novel’, Working with English: Medieval and Modern Language, Literature and Drama, 2.1 (Autumn 2006), 89-100.
- ‘“Oh to Get out of that Room!”: Outcast London and the Gothic Twist in the Popular Fiction of Richard Marsh’, in Victorian Space(s): Leeds Centre Working Papers in Victorian Studies VIII, ed. by Karen Sayer (Leeds: Trinity and All Saints, University of Leeds, 2006), 115-126.
Conference and seminar organisation; reviewing
- Co-organiser of A Sort of Wisdom: Exploring the Legacy of Primo Levi Conference, Edge Hill University, 6-7 July, 2012.
- Reviewer, English Studies, 2010-.
- Co-organiser of the quarterly Department of English and History Research Forum, Edge Hill University, 2009-.
Selected Conference Appearances
- ‘The Papers of Richard Marsh: Professional Authorship and the Material Culture of Composition’, Composition and Decomposition, British Association for Victorian Studies Annual Conference, University of Birmingham, 2 September, 2011.
- ‘“The trade of a writer”: Richard Marsh, literary production and the periodical market’, Work and Leisure, Research Society for Victorian Periodicals 43rd Annual Conference, Canterbury Christ Church University, 22 July, 2011.
- ‘Eavesdropping and lip-reading: The narrative voice and the female detective in Richard Marsh’s “The Adventures of Judith Lee” (1911-16)’, The Singer not the Song: Narration in the Short Story Conference, Sheffield Hallam University, 24 June, 2011.
- ‘Bestsellers 1: Dracula’, invited talk for The Friends of the Senate House Library, University of London, 16 May, 2011.
- ‘The clerk from Walham Green: the centrality of the suburban in Richard Marsh’s “The Adventures of Sam Briggs” (1904-16)’, Literary London Conference, Institute of English Studies, University of London, 9 July, 2010
- ‘"Well Printed upon Good Paper": Material Culture and Brand Identity in G.A. Henty's Union Jack (1880-83)’, Material Cultures of Periodicals Conference, Research Society for Victorian Periodicals, Yale University, 11 September, 2010
- ‘From “Vulgar” and “Impossible” to “Pre-eminently Readable”: Richard Marsh’s Shifting Critical Fortunes, 1893-1915’, Victorian Popular Novelists Conference, Institute of English Studies, University of London, 11 September, 2009.
- ‘“Exactly Where I Was I Could Not Tell”: Richard Marsh’s Urban Gothic Topographies’, Literary London Conference, Queen Mary, University of London, 10 July, 2009.
- ‘“Forming Characters”: Union Jack and Niche Marketing for Boys in the 1880s’, Characters of the Press Conference, Research Society for Victorian Periodicals, University of Roehampton, 4 July, 2008.
- ‘“Cribb’d, Cabined, and Confined”: Claustrophobia in Richard Marsh’s Urban Gothic Fiction’, Phobia: Constructing the Phenomenology of Chronic Fear, 1789 to the Present Conference, Glamorgan Research Centre for Literature, Arts and Science, University of Glamorgan, Cardiff, 9 May 2009.
- ‘“Some Ghoulish Example of her Sex”: The Foreign Female Monster in Richard Marsh’s The Beetle: A Mystery (1897) and The Goddess: A Demon (1900)’, Victorian Feeling: Touch, Bodies, Emotions Conference, British Association for Victorian Studies, University of Leicester, 1 September, 2008.
- ‘“Contributing to Most Things”: Richard Marsh, the Periodical Press and the Short-Story Collection’, Oceans of Stories: Collections, Sequences and the Short Story Conference, Liverpool John Moores University and Edge Hill University, 10 May, 2008.
- ‘“A Master of his Craft”: Richard Marsh, Literary Production and the Late-Victorian Canon’, Victorian Literature: The Canon and Beyond Conference, University of Chester, 2 June, 2007.
- ‘“Oh to Get Out of that Room!”: Outcast London and the Gothic Twist in the Popular Fiction of Richard Marsh’, Victorian Space(s) Colloquium, Leeds Centre for Victorian Studies, Trinity and All Saints College, University of Leeds, 18 March, 2006.
- ‘“That Night at Canterstone Jail Something Rather Curious Occurred”: Imprisonment and Fantasy in Richard Marsh’s Supernatural Prison Stories’, Victorian Criminalities Conference, University of Exeter, 18 April, 2005.
- ‘Richard Marsh’s The Beetle (1897): Popular Fiction in Turn-of-the-Century Britain’, Literary Fads and Fashions Conference, University of Nottingham, 27 November, 2004.
- ‘“It Was Hard to Believe that Such a Creature Could Be Human. And English!”: Representations of Poverty in the Popular Fiction of Richard Marsh’, Outsiders Conference, University of Stirling, 27 March, 2004.