Eva Dema, St John's
Course: English
Supervisor: Dr Ruth Abbott
Dissertation Title: Thomas Hardy and the Modern Manuscript (1898-1928)
Biographical Information
I studied at St. John's College, Cambridge for both my BA in English and an MPhil in Modern and Contemporary Literature. After taking a year away from academia - during which I worked with various charities focused on advancing social and educational mobility - I returned to Cambridge to begin an AHRC-funded PhD in 2021. Before coming to Cambridge I was educated entirely at state schools in South London and, as a first-generation student born and raised in social housing, I'm particularly interested in issues relating to access to higher education. I welcome all students from underrepresented backgrounds to contact me regarding higher education and/or studying English: eod22@cam.ac.uk.
For Lent Term 2024, I will be a Visiting Scholar at Columbia University, working on a project focused on the international manuscript market at the turn of the twentieth century. During Summer 2024, I will be taking up the William H. Helfand Fellowship at the Grolier Club of New York to continue my work on this project.
In 2023, my research was awarded two academic prizes: The Review of English Studies Essay Prize for my work on Thomas Hardy, and the inaugural David Paroissien Prize for my work on Charles Dickens. The former prize is awarded to the best article in the field of English Literature by a current or recent postgraduate student, while the latter is awarded by the Dickens Society to the best article or book chapter published on Dickens each year. I have also received a number of general academic awards, including a Vice-Chancellor’s Award from the University of Cambridge; a full MPhil Scholarship from St. John’s College, Cambridge; and an Open-Oxford-Cambridge Doctoral Studentship from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (UKRI).
Research Interests
My doctoral thesis constitutes the first book-length study of Thomas Hardy’s poetry manuscripts, which were produced during a pivotal period in the history of manuscript studies: the ‘golden age’ of the transatlantic manuscript trade (1890-1929). Drawing on methodologies from textual scholarship and book history, my research offers a historical inquiry into the significance of Hardy’s manuscripts to two concurrent literary developments: the manuscript trading tensions that fuelled Anglo-American debates surrounding cultural heritage, and the institutionalisation of English as an academic discipline.
Areas of Interest: 19th century literature; revision; manuscripts & textual studies; book history & collecting; literary labour; working-class literature; dialect & (non)translation; contemporary poetry (particularly relating to class and/or queerness); Thomas Hardy; Charles Dickens; Edward Thomas; Siegfried Sassoon; Frank O'Hara.
Selected Publications
Journal Articles:
- ‘‘An American Offer’: Thomas Hardy and the Transatlantic Manuscript Trade (1890-1929)’, forthcoming from English Literary History (2025)
- ‘Printing Thomas Hardy’s Pronouns’, Essays in Criticism, 74.2 (April 2024), 199-223: https://doi.org/10.1093/escrit/cgae011
- ‘‘Sacred to the Memory’: Thomas Hardy’s Tombstones’, The Review of English Studies, 75 (June 2024), 280–298: https://doi.org/10.1093/res/hgae028 [Winner of the Review of English Studies Essay Prize]
- ‘Writing for Relief: Poetry, Labor, and the Lancashire Cotton Famine’, Victorian Poetry, 60.1 (Spring 2022), 27-50: https://doi.org/10.1353/vp.2022.0001
- ‘‘Wind, wind, wind, always winding am I’: Dickens’s Metafictional Clockwork’, The Review of English Studies, 73 (June 2022), 552-567: https://doi.org/10.1093/res/hgab094 [Winner of the David Paroissien Prize, awarded by the Dickens Society]
- ‘Moments of (Re)Vision: Thomas Hardy Making Amends’, English: Journal of the English Association, 70 (Autumn 2021), 272-293: https://doi.org/10.1093/english/efab006
Book Reviews:
- ‘Hardy's Poetic Retrospect’, The Cambridge Quarterly, 53.1 (March 2024), 77-82: https://doi.org/10.1093/camqtly/bfad024