Sarah Alwin

BA, MA

School of English

Research Student

satalwin1@sheffield.ac.uk
Qualifications
  • BA in English Literature, University of Sheffield, 1998
  • PGCE Secondary English, University of Sheffield, 1999
  • MA in English Literature, University of Sheffield, 2016
Research interests
  • Colonial and post-colonial spatiality
  • Domestic spaces
  • South East Asian writing

My research probes the role of intimate domestic spaces in writing located in South East Asia spanning from the early 20th century to the present day. Authors from W Somerset Maugham through to Tan Twan Eng and Catherine Lim feature, and issues of power, the concept of the Asian gothic, and psychogeography are all examined through the lens of the domestic setting.

Places which were purpose built for comfort can become the site of abjection, haunting, and murder, and my research looks at the relationship between lived space and the bodies which inhabit it.

Research group

Supervisors

  • Veronica Barnsley
  • Richard Steadman-Jones
Professional activities and memberships

I am a member of the Sheffield Death Group.

Publications
  • Gothic animals invading urban domestic space: an examination of Crow in Grief is The Thing With Feathers by Max Porter at Reimagining the Gothic at University of Sheffield, 2017
  • The Living Dead: Tensions between the body and the built environment in the work of Dodie Bellamy at Tensions at University of Sheffield, 2017
  • How does Somerset Maugham depict colonial private spaces and present female power in his Far Eastern Tales? at Landscapes of Power, University of Nottingham, 2017