Dr Emily Ridge

BA,MA,PhD

 
researcher
 

Biography

I completed my B.A. at Trinity College Dublin and M.A. at University College London. In 2012, I was awarded my PhD at Durham University. I took up a position as Lecturer in the English Department here at the National University of Ireland Galway in 2020, having previously taught at City University of Hong Kong and the Education University of Hong Kong. 

Research Interests

My research interests lie in modernist and mid-twentieth-century literature, more specifically forms of transnational and cross-cultural displacement, mobile material culture, narrative form, modern women's writing, and, more recently, literary engagements with biopolitics and with the concepts of hospitality, empathy and care. 

My first monograph was published in July 2017 by Edinburgh University Press, Portable Modernisms: The Art of Travelling Light. It considers the impact of a new culture of portability upon modernist visions of and approaches to fiction, spanning from the late nineteenth century to World War II. A central aim is to account for and explore modernist conceptions of literary form in mobile rather than static terms, as a counterpoint to literary architectural visions.

More recently, I have become interested in fraught literary representations of hospitality and empathy in late modernist and postwar writing, particularly the ways in which such troubled depictions invoke and reflect upon acts of political diplomacy, immigration, welfare and the reception of refugees across the continent of Europe around the Second World War. My next book-length project illuminates and examines a double-edged discourse surrounding emotional expression that emerged in British women's writing of the mid-century period, with a view to the wider practices and histories of emotion management. 

Articles based on aspects of my research have been published in journals such as Modernist Cultures (2021), Novel: A Forum on Fiction (2019), Papers on Language and Literature (2019), Literature Compass (2016), Journeys: The International Journal of Travel and Travel Writing (2015), Modernism/Modernity (2014), Textual Practice (2013), and Katherine Mansfield Studies (2013). I am co-editor (with Dr. Jeffrey Clapp) of a volume of essays entitled Security and Hospitality in Literature and Culture: Modern and Contemporary Perspectives (Routledge 2016). I also recently co-edited (with Dr Alexandra Peat) a double special issue of Women: A Cultural Review on 'Discourses of Emotional Labour' (2023).

I was a founding member of the Modernist Studies in Asia Network (MSIA) and I am currently a Co-Editor for the 'Modernist Geographies' section of Literature Compass.

For more information on my monograph: https://edinburghuniversitypress.com/book-portable-modernisms.html
For more information on the volume I co-edited: 

Peer Reviewed Journals

  Year Publication
(2023) 'Introduction: Imagining and Reimagining Emotional Labour'
Emily Ridge and Alexandra Peat (2023) 'Introduction: Imagining and Reimagining Emotional Labour'. Women: A Cultural Review, 34 (4) [Details]
(2023) 'Fabricating Feelings in the Post-War Workplace: Muriel Spark's The Ballad of Peckham Rye (1960) and Christine Brooke-Rose's The Middlemen (1961)'
Emily Ridge (2023) 'Fabricating Feelings in the Post-War Workplace: Muriel Spark's The Ballad of Peckham Rye (1960) and Christine Brooke-Rose's The Middlemen (1961)'. Women: A Cultural Review, 34 (4) [Details]
(2021) 'Bureaucracy across Borders: Administering Cosmopolitan Hospitality at the English P.E.N., 1930–1945'
Emily Ridge (2021) 'Bureaucracy across Borders: Administering Cosmopolitan Hospitality at the English P.E.N., 1930–1945'. Modernist Cultures, 16 (3):367-384 [Details]
(2019) 'Beware of Pity: Stefan Zweig and the Fate of Narrative Empathy Under Surveillance'
Emily Ridge (2019) 'Beware of Pity: Stefan Zweig and the Fate of Narrative Empathy Under Surveillance'. Novel: A Forum on Fiction, 52 (2):240-260 [Details]
(2019) 'Close reading an archival object: Reflections on a postcard from Salvador Dali to Stefan Zweig, circa 1938'
Emily Ridge (2019) 'Close reading an archival object: Reflections on a postcard from Salvador Dali to Stefan Zweig, circa 1938'. Papers on Language and Literature, 55 (1):33-50 [Details]
(2018) 'Review of the books Sharp: The women who made an art of having an opinion, by Michelle Dean / Tough enough: Arbus, Arendt, Didion, McCarthy, Sontag, Weil, by Deborah Nelson'
Emily Ridge (2018) 'Review of the books Sharp: The women who made an art of having an opinion, by Michelle Dean / Tough enough: Arbus, Arendt, Didion, McCarthy, Sontag, Weil, by Deborah Nelson'. Textual Practice, :1451-1455 [Details]
(2016) 'Threshold anxieties: (In)hospitality, the English novel and the Second World War'
Emily Ridge (2016) 'Threshold anxieties: (In)hospitality, the English novel and the Second World War'. Literature Compass, [Details]
(2015) 'Modern women, mobility, and maternity'
Emily Ridge (2015) 'Modern women, mobility, and maternity'. Journeys, 16 (1):29-53 [Details]
(2014) 'The problem of the woman's bag from the new woman to modernism'
Emily Ridge (2014) 'The problem of the woman's bag from the new woman to modernism'. Modernism-Modernity, 21 (3):757-780 [Details]
(2013) 'Elizabeth Bowen, Howards End and the luggage of modernity'
Emily Ridge (2013) 'Elizabeth Bowen, Howards End and the luggage of modernity'. Textual Practice, 27 (1):109-126 [Details]

Books

  Year Publication
(2017) Portable Modernisms: The Art of Travelling Light.
Emily Ridge (2017) Portable Modernisms: The Art of Travelling Light. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. [Details]

Book Chapters

  Year Publication
(2024) ''Coldly Kind': Calculated Care in Post-War British Women¿s Writing'
Emily Ridge (2024) ''Coldly Kind': Calculated Care in Post-War British Women¿s Writing' In: Mid-century women's writing: Disrupting the Public/Private Divide. Manchester: Manchester University Press. [Details]
(2024) 'Displacements and Juxtapositions'
Emily Ridge (2024) 'Displacements and Juxtapositions' In: The Bloomsbury Handbook of Modernist Archivesrch. London: Bloomsbury. [Details]
(2022) 'Virginia Woolf's Development of a Sociology of Emotion in the Composition of The Years'
Emily Ridge (2022) 'Virginia Woolf's Development of a Sociology of Emotion in the Composition of The Years' In: The Routledge Companion to Literature and Emotion. London: Routledge. [Details]
(2020) 'Writing Modernist Women: Toward a Poetics of Insubstantiality'
Emily Ridge (2020) 'Writing Modernist Women: Toward a Poetics of Insubstantiality' In: Writing Modernist Women: Women Making Modernist Women. :19-39 Florida: University Press of Florida. [Details]
(2016) 'Security, Hospitality, and perversion in Muriel Spark's Robinson'
Emily Ridge (2016) 'Security, Hospitality, and perversion in Muriel Spark's Robinson' In: Security and hospitality in literature and culture: Modern and contemporary perspectives. :53-63 United Kingdom: Routledge. [Details]
(2016) 'Introduction: Risking Hospitality'
Emily Ridge and Jeffrey Clapp (2016) 'Introduction: Risking Hospitality' In: Security and hospitality in literature and culture: Modern and contemporary perspectives. :1-16 United Kingdom: Routledge. [Details]

Edited Books

  Year Publication
(2016) Security and hospitality in literature and culture: Modern and contemporary perspectives.
Emily Ridge and Jeffrey Clapp (Ed.). (2016) Security and hospitality in literature and culture: Modern and contemporary perspectives Security and hospitality in literature and culture: Modern and contemporary perspectives. United Kingdom: Routledge. [Details]

Conference Contributions

  Year Publication
(2021) ACLA,
Emily Ridge (2021) 'Strategies of Care in the Post-War Workplace: Muriel Spark's The Ballad of Peckham Rye and Christine Brooke-Rose's The Middlemen. [Conference Organising Committee Chairperson], ACLA, Online , 17-APR-21. [Details]
(2019) Modernism and Multiple Temporalities,
Emily Ridge (2019) Roundtable Panellist: Reconsidering Modernism and Multiple Temporalities. [Invited Oral Presentation], Modernism and Multiple Temporalities, Tokyo , 14-SEP-19. [Details]
(2019) Troublesome Modernisms (BAMS),
Emily Ridge (2019) Troublesome Archives. [Oral Presentation], Troublesome Modernisms (BAMS), London , 22-JUN-19. [Details]
(2019) Troublesome Modernisms (BAMS),
Emily Ridge (2019) Late Avant-Gardism: Virginia Woolf’s The Years. [Oral Presentation], Troublesome Modernisms (BAMS), London , 21-JUN-19. [Details]
(2018) Cosmopolitanism and Literature: A Symposium,
Emily Ridge (2018) Bureaucracy Across Borders: Administering Cosmopolitan Hospitality at the English P.E.N., 1930-1945. [Oral Presentation], Cosmopolitanism and Literature: A Symposium, Trinity College Dublin , 01-FEB-18. [Details]
(2017) Modernist Studies Association,
Emily Ridge (2017) Institutional Refuge: Modernism, Hospitality and the P.E.N. [Oral Presentation], Modernist Studies Association, Amsterdam , 12-AUG-17. [Details]
(2017) Modernist Life (BAMS),
Emily Ridge (2017) ‘We Do Not Need a Little Government to Interfere With Our Millions of Anonymous Hearts’: Unempathetic Surveillance in Muriel Spark’s The Girls of Slender Means. [Oral Presentation], Modernist Life (BAMS), Birmingham , 30-JUN-17. [Details]
(2017) ACLA,
Emily Ridge (2017) Faltering Analogies. [Oral Presentation], ACLA, Utrecht , 09-JUL-17. [Details]
(2016) Historical Modernisms,
Emily Ridge (2016) Close Reading Historical Paraphernalia: Reflections on a Postcard from Salvador Dali to Stefan Zweig, Circa 1938. [Oral Presentation], Historical Modernisms, London , 12-DEC-16. [Details]
(2016) Under Surveillance in the Space Between, 1914-1945,
Emily Ridge (2016) Beware of Pity: Stefan Zweig and the Fate of Empathy Under Surveillance. [Oral Presentation], Under Surveillance in the Space Between, 1914-1945, Montreal , 03-JUN-16. [Details]
(2015) CUHK Seminar Series,
Emily Ridge (2015) ‘Have You Anything to Declare?': Modernism, the Customs Officer, and Contraband Psychology. [Invited Oral Presentation], CUHK Seminar Series, Hong Kong , 06-NOV-15. [Details]
(2015) Product, Production, Productivity: A Women's Studies Symposium,
Emily Ridge (2015) Creative (Re)Production: Modern Women, Mobility and Maternity. [Oral Presentation], Product, Production, Productivity: A Women's Studies Symposium, Singapore , 11-DEC-15. [Details]
(2015) HKU Seminar Series,
Emily Ridge (2015) The Skeleton in the Suitcase: Modernism, Portability, and Suspicion. [Invited Oral Presentation], HKU Seminar Series, Hong Kong , 18-NOV-15. [Details]
(2015) 'Virginia Woolf and her Female Contemporaries,
Emily Ridge (2015) Roundtable Panellist: Theory, Women, and Modernism. [Invited Oral Presentation], 'Virginia Woolf and her Female Contemporaries, Pennsylvania , 07-JUN-15. [Details]
(2014) Transnational Modernisms,
Emily Ridge (2014) Displacing the House: Portable Visions for Transnational Modernist Fictions. [Oral Presentation], Transnational Modernisms, Sydney , 16-DEC-14. [Details]
(2014) Victorian Transport,
Emily Ridge (2014) Dickens's Luggage: Forms and Fictions of Transportability in Bleak House. [Oral Presentation], Victorian Transport, Hong Kong , 11-JUN-14. [Details]
(2013) Modernist Studies Association,
Emily Ridge (2013) Hospitality in Crisis: The Wartime Politics of Visiting in Elizabeth Bowen's 'Summer Night'. [Oral Presentation], Modernist Studies Association, Sussex , 01-SEP-13. [Details]
(2013) Dorothy Richardson Day Conference,
Emily Ridge (2013) Miriam Henderson's Saratoga Trunk. [Oral Presentation], Dorothy Richardson Day Conference, London , 01-JUL-13. [Details]
(2013) The Lives of Objects,
Emily Ridge (2013) Biographical Beginnings: The Anatomy of the Woman's Bag. [Oral Presentation], The Lives of Objects, Oxford , 21-SEP-13. [Details]
(2013) 'Cross-Channel Reflections: European Travel and Migration Across the Centuries,
Emily Ridge (2013) 'Show Me Your Luggage and I'll Tell You Who You Are': Portable Identities in Europe, 1907-45. [Invited Oral Presentation], 'Cross-Channel Reflections: European Travel and Migration Across the Centuries, London , 26-APR-13. [Details]
(2012) Northern Modernism Seminar,
Emily Ridge (2012) Late Modernist Luggage: The Politics of Packing in Henry Green’s Party Going and Pack My Bag. [Oral Presentation], Northern Modernism Seminar, Durham , 17-FEB-12. [Details]
(2012) Moving Dangerously: Women and Travel, 1850-1950,
Emily Ridge (2012) Uncommon Baggage: The New Woman Traveller and the Emancipatory Bag. [Oral Presentation], Moving Dangerously: Women and Travel, 1850-1950, Newcastle , 14-APR-12. [Details]
(2011) Shaping Modernism: Katherine Mansfield and her Contemporaries,
Emily Ridge (2011) Workmanship and Wildness: Katherine Mansfield on Edith Wharton’s The Age of Innocence. [Conference Organising Committee Chairperson], Shaping Modernism: Katherine Mansfield and her Contemporaries, Cambridge , 26-MAR-11. [Details]
(2010) December 1910 Centenary Conference,
Emily Ridge (2010) What Becomes of Mrs Brown?: The Portrait of a Lady Outside of the House. [Oral Presentation], December 1910 Centenary Conference, Glasgow , 11-DEC-10. [Details]
(2010) Late Summer Lectures in English Literature,
Emily Ridge and Ann-Marie Einhaus (2010) Suspicious Cases: Spies, Smugglers and the First World War. [Plenary Lecture], Late Summer Lectures in English Literature, Durham , 25-AUG-10. [Details]
(2009) Elizabeth Bowen: Visions and Revisions,
Emily Ridge (2009) Elizabeth Bowen and the Case of Fiction. [Oral Presentation], Elizabeth Bowen: Visions and Revisions, Cork , 07-NOV-09. [Details]
(2009) Afterlives,
Emily Ridge (2009) “SO”: Tracing Georges Perec in the Work of Sophie Calle. [Oral Presentation], Afterlives, Durham , 25-SEP-09. [Details]

Honours and Awards

  Year Title Awarding Body
2015 Early Career Scheme Grant Research Grants Council Hong Kong
2008 Doctoral Grant Arts and Humanities Research Council, UK

Professional Associations

  Association Function From / To
Literature Compass Section Editor (modernist Geographies) 01-JAN-21 /

Education

  Year Institution Qualification Subject
2013 Durham University PhD English
2007 University College London MA English: Issues in Modern Culture
2006 Trinity College Dublin BA English Studies

Teaching Interests

I welcome expressions of interest from potential postgraduate students in any aspect of late-nineteenth and twentieth-century fiction.

Current Postgraduate Students (Research)

  Student Degree Type Type
Ruairi Kennedy Doctorate - Structured Ph.D. in Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences Supervisor
Paula Maher Martin Doctorate - Structured Ph.D. in Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences Supervisor

Modules Taught

  Term/Year Module Title Module Code Subject / Desc
Sem 1 Studies in Twentieth Century Literature EN387
Sem 1/2 Twentieth-Century Women's Writing EN3156 / EN3159
Sem 1/2 Literature, Empathy and Estrangement EN3154/EN3155
Sem 2 Reading Fiction EN125