Hannah Wilson, Homerton

Biographical Information

Before coming to Cambridge, I studied for a BA (First Class Honours) and MA (Distinction) in English Literature at the University of Kent. Following this I spent two years working in children's publishing, as well as volunteering as a research assistant for Canterbury Cathedral and the Bath Assembly Rooms. I returned to academic study in October 2021, starting a PhD at Homerton College.

For 2023-2025, I am a co-convenor of the Drama and Performance Research Seminar. In 2023, I was a Visiting Fellow at Chawton House, and I have recieved research grants from The Burney Society, the British Association for Romantic Studies, the British Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, and the University of Birmingham Eighteenth-Century Centre. In 2025 I was an Intern for the Elizabeth Montagu Correspondence Online research project.

At Cambridge, I have taught Part 1B Paper 6: English Litertature, 1660-1870, Part II Paper I: Practical Criticism, and the Love, Gender and Sexuality 1740-1824 paper. I have also supervised dissertations on Aphra Behn and John Keats, and I am a marker for the 2024 and 2025 CELAT. Outside of the Faculty, I have taught on Mary Shelley in my role as a Postgraduate Session Leader for the University’s outreach programme, and designed a course on Jane Austen for Year 10 students at a secondary school as a PhD Tutor with The Brilliant Club.

Research Interests

My PhD research explores the complex relations between amatory gift exchange and consent in eighteenth-century female-authored courtship novels. Historical perspectives on sexual relationships in eighteenth-century Britain invite us to view unwanted sexual relations as the result of women being overpowered by physical force. My research intervenes in these discussions by recognising how the mental obligations of gift exchange inhibit women’s ability to meaningfully consent to the relationship via psychological, rather than bodily, manipulation. By bringing scholarly debates surrounding gift exchange and consent into conversation, my thesis re-examines critical thought on literary and historical studies of eighteenth-century courtship, and both eighteenth-century and evolving present-day debates regarding meaningful consent in order to propose the centrality of gift exchange to coercive control.

My thesis focuses on the authors Eliza Haywood, Sarah Scott, Frances Burney, and Jane Austen.

My wider research interests include feminist literature and theory, queer studies, the history of emotions, the eighteenth-century novel, and theories of love and desire.

Selected Publications

Book Reviews:

‘Inger Sigrun Bredkjær Brodey. Jane Austen and the Price of Happiness. Pp. vii + 309. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2024. Hardback, $27.95.’ The Review of English Studies. March 2025.

Conference Papers:

• ‘Gift Exchange and the Uncertain Boundaries of Consensual Courtship Intimacies in Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility’. The Global Jane Austen, University of Southampton (July 2025)
• ‘The Psychology of Consent in Eliza Haywood’s The History of Miss Betsy Thoughtless’. Eighteenth Century and Romantic Studies Seminar, University of Cambridge (May 2025)
• ‘‘Erotic and Neurotic’: The Necklace as Courtship Gift in Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park’. British Society for Eighteenth Century Studies’ 54th Annual Conference, University of Oxford (January 2025)
• ‘‘all property laid in one undistinguished common’: Self-Interested Gift Exchanges and Consent in Sarah Scott’s Millenium Hall’. British Society for Eighteenth Century Studies Postgraduate and Early Career Conference, University of Uppsala (August 2024)
• ‘Frances Burney and the Hardwicke Marriage Act’. Burney Society UK Conference, University of Greenwich (June 2024)
• ‘“greater obligations than I had power to confer”: Eighteenth-Century Gift Exchanges in the Cadbury Research Library’. Birmingham Eighteenth Century Centre Research Seminar, University of Birmingham (March 2024)
• ‘Cooperative Models of Consent in Sarah Scott’s Millenium Hall’. British Society for Eighteenth Century Studies’ 53rd Annual Conference, University of Oxford (January 2024)
• ‘Syrena Tricksy’s Social Exile in Eliza Haywood’s Anti-Pamela’. British Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies Postgraduate and Early Career Conference, University of Edinburgh (July 2023)