Nicola Westwood

• BA Joint Honours English Literature and History (University of Birmingham)
• MA Literature and Culture (University of Birmingham)
• Associate Fellowship (AFHEA) 2020
• HEFi Horizon Award in Higher Education Teaching 2019

I graduated in 2017 from the University of Birmingham with a First Class Bachelor of Arts, Joint Honours English and History. I then went on to complete my Master’s degree in Literature and Culture the following year, specifically focusing on the ‘long’ nineteenth century. My dissertation explored anti-slavery sentiments in the works of Herman Melville. In 2018 I was awarded the Birmingham Doctoral Scholarship, and began my PhD in the English Literature department of the University of Birmingham.

• Postgraduate Demonstrator for the Academic Writing Advisory Service (AWAS) – University of Birmingham 2019-2021
• PhD Tutor at The Brilliant Club on The Scholars Programme 2020-2021

My thesis explores the various different emotions used by anti-slavery writers to inspire sympathy for enslaved Africans in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. It will explore portrayals of slave anger, sensibility and happiness, in addition to attempts to inspire the reader’s fear, shame and guilt, in order to gain support for the abolition of the slave trade and slavery in Britain. My research will situate abolitionist literature within its historical context to track the changing use of emotions, incorporating the skills I gained from my undergraduate history modules, particularly my Specialist Subject history module on the slave trade and slavery in Britain. This interdisciplinary approach will reveal the diversity of the abolitionist campaign, and seeks to demonstrate the complex networks between British humanitarians, politicians, and former slaves, acknowledging the contributions of a wide range of individuals from various social and cultural backgrounds. It will highlight the intersection of race, emotions and rhetoric in abolitionist literature, and seeks to broaden the canon to include the literary contributions of former slaves.

• Co-organiser of the MA Dissertation Conference 2018
• Presenter at the Research Poster Conference 2019, and winner of the Engagement Award
• PGR Peer Mentor 2019-2021
• PGR Rep for the College of Arts and Law 2019-2021
• Peer reviewer of Ad Alta Journal 2019-2020

Conference papers

• At the ‘Anniversaries, Jubilees, Commemorations’ BSECS Annual Conference,6^th-8^th Jan 2021, I presented a paper on ‘Radical Rhetoric - The Abolitionist Response to Parliamentary Defeat’, and was also awarded the BSECS Postgraduate/ECR Conference Bursary.
• I presented a paper on ‘Race, Revolts & Agency in Anti-slavery Rhetoric’ at the Agency and Emotions Conference, 27^th November 2020, organised by the Centre for Nineteenth Century Studies (CNCS).
• I presented a paper on ‘Rights, Revolution, and the Rhetoric of Anger in British Abolitionist Literature’ at the Romantic Futurities Conference, 12-13^th June 2020, hosted by the British Association of Romantic Studies (BARS).
• I was awarded funding to travel to Dublin to present a paper on ‘The Rhetoric of Anger in British Abolitionist Literature’ at the Carving out a Space for the History of Emotions Conference, 18^th January 2020, at University College Dublin.
• I presented my research at the Research Poster Conference 2019, and won the Engagement Award.
• Co-organised the MA Dissertation Conference 2018