Professor Angela Smith
Profiles

Professor Angela Smith

Professor of Modern Literature

School of Society and Culture (Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Business)

Professor Angela Smith can be contacted through arrangement with our Press Office, to speak to the media on these areas of expertise.
  • English literature
  • Literature and gender
  • War literature
  • Modernism
Biography

Biography

Professor of Modern Literature

I use my research interests to create exciting and innovative taught modules for both undergraduate and postgraduate students. I have been working and publishing on the First World War and its aftermath for many years and this has enabled me to teach a range of related modules, including 'War Writing Since 1914' which allows undergraduates to think about war literature and experience throughout the twentieth and into the twenty-first centuries, and 'The Legacy of War: Fiction of the 1920s and 1930s' which offers MA students an in depth look at the ways in which the novel in the inter-war years reflects the concerns of society. My new work on Historical Fiction has led to the creation of my 'Re-thinking Historical Fiction' module and my interest in Speculative fiction has enabled me to develop a new module for third year undergraduates on Science Fiction, Fantasy and politics. 

Qualifications

1989–92 – BA (Hons) degree in English and History – First class honours

Roehampton Institute London

1992–93 – MA in Twentieth Century Literature

University of Sussex

1993–1997 – Roehampton Institute London – (1993–4 Teaching Assistantship at Roehampton)

PhD: The Great War and the Emergence of Female Modernism – awarded December 1997

1998 – SEDA accreditation as a teacher in Higher Education

University of Plymouth Certificate in Teaching and Learning in Higher Education

Professional membership

AHRC Peer Review College

Editorial Board: Journal of War and Culture Studies

Roles on external bodies

AHRC Peer Review College

Editorial Board: Journal of War and Culture Studies


Teaching

Teaching

Teaching interests

War Writing Since 1914 

This third year module builds on my particular research expertise in a range of different writings of the First World War and others. It explores some of the writings of war, published in various countries since 1914, examining the texts and experiences of both men and women. The module includes a number of genres: prose fiction, poetry, life writing and film, placed within an appropriate critical framework and offers an understanding of the way writing has developed to illustrate the impact of war during the last hundred years. 

Writing War 1850-1950: The Impact of Modernity
This MA module, again drawing on my primary research interest, explores the impact of modernity on the experience of warfare from c. 1850 to the end of the Second World War. Using a range of written records by both men and women, and examining a variety of genres the module tracks the influence of technological, social, political and cultural developments on representations of war. It examines the way in which the war impacted on society, politics, gender and culture, influencing the production of new literatures. The module is designed thematically, to explore the historical period through a range of concepts and ideas. We read the literature back through the experience of a range of wars, considering the historical contexts and the impact of literary development.

The module considers the texts through critical mediums such as historiography, new historicism and cultural materialism, the avant garde as well as through issues of value and taste and gender and sexuality. 

The Legacy of War: Fiction of the 1920s and 19230s
This MA module draws on my more recent research into war and memory in inter-war fiction and explores the impact of the experience of the First World War on literary developments of the 1920s and 1930s, with a primary focus on the novel. It examines the way in which the war impacted on society, politics and culture, influencing the production of new literatures. The module is designed thematically, to explore the historical period through a range of concepts and ideas. We will be reading the literature back through the experience of war and looking forward to the possibility of another war, even more devastating than the first.  

Re-thinking Historical Fiction
This second year module is constructed around another of my research interests that builds on my war work to examine the ways in which literature and history have intersected across the centuries. Here students explore the interface between literature and history over several centuries, focusing particularly on literary representations of 'real' events and characters. It uses a selection of key narrative theories relating to the writing of history and historical fictions to also consider the ways in which literary texts may have impacted on the writing of subsequent histories. 

Research

Research

Research interests

  • War Writing: I have a particular interest in literatures of the First World War, fiction, creative non-fiction, life writing and reportage all of which are represented in my published work on this topic. Also war fiction of the long twentieth century, 1914 to the present, with a particular focus on memory. I have also worked on the idea of 'alternate spaces' of war, moving beyond the most common understanding of war writing and experience to consider more marginalised impressions and perspectives. 
  • Gender and War writing, particularly the First World War. I have a particular specialism in women's writing of the First World War. Much of my published work engages with this directly. Most recently I have explored the experience of women on the Eastern Front through their writings. A specifically gendered experience unique in First World War studies. 
  • War and Memory: Relating to the ways in which war is represented and commemorated across the long twentieth century, 1914 to the present, particularly the ways in which literatures of war contribute to the development of popular and cultural memory.
  • Discourses of the Women's Suffrage Movement. I am interested in the relationship between the campaign for women's suffrage and the First World War, as explored in my book, Suffrage Discourse in Britain During the First World War. This research is currently being applied to a major AHRC funded project to commemorate the centenary of the Representation of People Act in 1918, working with the University of Lincoln and Vote 100 at Westminster. 
  • Historical fiction with a particular focus on the intersect between HF and Speculative fiction/ fantasy. This new project draws upon a range of different modes of writing to explore ideas of 'genre'.

I would welcome PhD candidates with an interest in any of these areas.

Research degrees awarded to supervised students

PhDs

  • Anna Trussler on the poetry of Ronald Duncan.
  • Lucy Durneen, ‘Everything beautiful is Far Away’ (Creative Writing).
  • Mary Jacobs ’Politics and Aesthetics in the Literary Work of Sylvia Townsend Warner’.
  • Adhraa Al Shammari who is writing her PhD on the influence of First World War poetry and Modernism on the development of Iraqi war poetry of the 1980s.

Grants & contracts

EXTERNAL FUNDING

2017 – AHRC Follow on Funding for project 'What Difference Did the War make?' in partnership with the University of Lincoln and Vote 100 , Westminster. 

2013 – AHRC Networking Grant for 'Alternate Spaces of the Great War'. The project will run from 1/09/13 – 31/7/15 and includes partners from University of Lincoln, Queen Mary's London and Oxford Brookes.

February 2003–February 2004 AHRB funded Research leave to complete my Suffrage book. My post-leave report received the highest accreditation from the AHRB

November 2001 – The British Academy paid my expenses to speak at the North American Conference on British Studies, Toronto.

1994–7 British Academy Three Year Studentship for the completion of my PhD

1992–3 British Academy One year Studentship to fund my MA

Publications

Publications

Key publications

Key publications are highlighted

Journals
Articles
Smith A (2019) 'Trabajadores «dignos» en profesiones «honradas»: los oficios y la formación de la clase obrera barcelonesa (1899-1914)' Hispania 56, (193) 655-655 , DOI
Smith AK & Cowman K (2017) 'Introduction' Journal of War and Culture Studies , DOI Open access
Smith AK (2016) 'Outsider Positions: Negotiating Gender, Nationality and Memory in the War Writing of Enid Bagnold' Women's Writing , DOI Open access
Smith AK (2016) 'The Silent Morning: Culture and Memory after the Armistice, Eds. Trudi Tate and Kate Kennedy - Review' Journal of social History
Smith AK (2015) 'How to Remember: War, Armistice and Memory in post-1918 British fiction' Journal of European Studies 45, (4) 301-315 , DOI Open access
Smith AK (2015) 'The War That Used Up Words: American Writers and the First World War By Hazel Hutchison' Times Higher Education 48-48 Open access
Smith AK (2015) 'Christine E. Hallett. Veiled Warriors: Allied Nurses of the First World War' The American Historical Review 120, (3) 953-955 , DOI
Smith AK (2014) 'British Culture and the First World War: Experience, Representation and Memory By Toby Thacker' Times Higher Education (2174) 55-55 Open access
Smith AK (2014) 'The First World War: Still No End In Sight By Frank Furedi' Times Higher Education Open access
Smith A (2011) '‘The Mists Which Shroud These Questions’: Mabel St Clair Stobart, the First World War and Faith' Literature & History 20, (2) 1-15 , DOI
Smith AK (2011) '‘The Mists Which Shroud these Questions’: Mabel St Clair Stobart, the First World War and Faith' Literature and History 20, (2) 1-15
Smith AK (2003) 'The Pankhurst and the War: suffrage magazines and First World War Propaganda' Women's History Review 12, (1) 103-118
Smith AK (2003) 'The Pankhursts and the War: Suffrage magazines and First World War propaganda' WOMENS HISTORY REVIEW 12, (1) 103-118 , DOI
Smith AK (2000) 'That Silly Suffrage: The Paradox of World War 1' Nineteenth Century Feminisms
Smith A (1991) 'Social Conflict and Trade-Union Organisation in the Catalan Cotton Textile Industry, 1890–1914' International Review of Social History 36, (3) 331-376 , DOI
Reviews
Smith AK (2010) 'Reconstructing the Body: Classicism, Modernism, and the First World War' CULTURAL & SOCIAL HISTORY 7, (3) 408-409 , DOI
Smith AK (2002) 'Women and theatre in the age of suffrage: The Pioneer Players, 1911-1925' WOMENS HISTORY REVIEW 11, (2) 331-332
Smith AK (2002) 'Working for victory: A diary of life in a Second World War factory' WOMENS HISTORY REVIEW 11, (3) 549-550
Books
Smith AK (2022) The Solace of the Common People. KDP
Smith AK & Barkhof S (2018) Introduction. Routledge , DOI Open access
(2018) War, Experience and Memory in Global Cultures Since 1914. Routledge , DOI
Smith AK & Cowman K (2017) Landscapes and voices of the great war. , DOI
Smith AK (2017) Gender and warfare in the twentieth century: Textual representations.
Smith AK (2016) British women of the Eastern Front.
Smith AK (2016) British Women of the Eastern Front: War, writing and experience in Serbia and Russia, 1914-20. Manchester University Press
Smith AK & Barkhof S (2014) Introduction: The no-man’s-land of displacement. , DOI Open access
Maunder A & Smith AK (2011) British Literature of World War I. Pickering & Chatto Ltd
Smith AK (2005) Suffrage discourse in Britain during the First World War. Ashgate Pub Co
Smith AK (2004) Gender and warfare in the twentieth century. Manchester Univ Pr
Smith AK (2000) The second battlefield: women, modernism and the First World War. Manchester Univ Pr
Smith AK (2000) Women's writing of the First World War. Manchester Univ Pr
Chapters
Smith A (2022) 'Mary Borden (1886-1968)' in Potter J A History of World War One Poetry Cambridge Cambridge University Press 409-423
Smith AK (2021) '6 Gendering the First World War: Masculinity and Femininity in First World War Literary and Cultural Production' Handbook of British Literature and Culture of the First World War De Gruyter 147-166 , DOI
Smith AK & Barkhof S (2018) 'Introduction' 1-17 Open access
Smith AK (2017) 'All Quiet on the Woolwich Front? Literary and Cultural Constructions of Women Munitions Workers in the First World War' Women and Work Culture Routledge 197-212 , DOI
Smith AK (2017) 'Chicken or hawk? Heroism, masculinity and violence in Vietnam War narratives' Gender and Warfare in the Twentieth Century: Textual Representations 174-194
Smith AK (2017) 'Landscapes of memory in centenary fiction' Landscapes and Voices of the Great War 222-240 , DOI
Smith AK & Barkhof S (2015) 'War and Displacement in the Twentieth Century: Global Conflicts' in Smith AK; Barkhof S New York and London Routledge 1-277 Open access
Bennett GH (2014) ''The French Resister in the Maghreb: French North Africa and the Formation of the Forces Aeriennes Francaises Libres, 1940–41'' in Barkhof S; Smith A War and Displacement in the Twentieth Century: Global Conflicts London Routledge 37-52
Smith AK (2013) '"Beacons of Britishness": British Nurses and Female Doctors as Prisoners of War' in Fell AS; Hallett CE First world War Nursing: New Perspectives Routledge
(2013) '“Beacons of Britishness”: British Nurses and Female Doctors as Prisoners of War' First World War Nursing Routledge 45-60 , DOI
Smith AK (2007) 'Modernity: Approaching the Twentieth Century' A Companion to Europe 1900–1945 Blackwell Publishing Ltd 150-164 , DOI
Smith AK (2007) 'The women's movement in wartime' in Fell AS; Sharp I The women's movement in wartime Palgrave MacMillan
Smith AK (2006) 'A companion to Europe' in Martel G A companion to Europe Wiley-Blackwell
Smith AK (2005) 'Paroles de femmes dans la guerre (1914-1918)' in Jeune FL Paroles de femmes dans la guerre (1914-1918)
Smith AK (2005) 'Women and work culture' in Cowman K; Jackson LA Women and work culture Ashgate Pub Co