Dr Stefka Ritchie

I have lived and worked in Birmingham for over thirty five years.  After completion of my BA(Hons) degree in English Language and Literature at Birmingham City University (formerly UCE) and an Advanced Certificate in TEFL at Aston University, I worked as Sessional Lecturer and Language Tutor, Aston University, Birmingham (Sept. 2000- Oct. 2014).  Based at the Centre for English Language and Communication (CELCA), I taught academic writing skills to students on undergraduate degree programmes within the various schools of the university.  The modules being specifically tailored to take into account the requirements for structure, objectivity of academic writing, clarity of expression and appropriate use of varied external sources.  Further, as a Language Tutor I was involved in the teaching of international students, mainly from China, Saudi Arabia and Japan on the BME pre-sessional programme at the University of Birmingham in the summer of 2003,2004 and 2015 and at Aston University from 2005-2014.  Throughout the emphasis was on advanced grammar, reading and listening skills, spoken communication and academic writing skills aimed to prepare students for undergraduate and postgraduate degree courses of study. 

Stefka Ritchie is currently Honorary Research Fellow at the School of History and Cultures, The University of Birmingham. 

After the completion of her MPhil thesis, ‘Samuel Johnson in an Age of Science’ (2002, BCU Birmingham), Stefka continued with a PhD study on Dr Johnson’s interest in social improvement, titled  ‘Samuel Johnson: A promoter of social improvement’ (2014, The University of Birmingham).

Pleasures of the Imagination. Samuel Johnson Illustrated (December 2015) is Stefka’s first inter-disciplinary project in which she explored the visual presence of text in seven of Johnson’s allegories.  The Reformist Ideas of Samuel Johnson, a book based on her PhD thesis, was published in 2017 by Cambridge Scholars Publishing who are also the publishers of her new book Samuel Johnson’s Pragmatism and Imagination (1 November 2018).

A member of the Johnson Society in Lichfield, Stefka has contributed papers on Dr Johnson to the annual journal of the Society and continues to apply the historical perspective in her post-doctoral research on Johnson and the Midlands.