Christine Harrison
Associate Lecturer in Skills Development

Profile

Biography

After gaining my BA and MA in English Literature at the University of Sussex, I taught study skills and English literature to undergraduate and postgraduate students at the Athens (Greece) campus of the University of Indianapolis. At the same time, I completed my PhD in contemporary historical fiction (University of Birmingham, 2009) and also developed new courses and published a number of papers in this area. I later gained a Trinity LTCL Diploma in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages, which I put to use as an English language tutor, pre-sessional tutor, and volunteer teacher of immigrants and refugees. I latterly worked as both an academic skills advisor (to students and faculty) and a lecturer in travel writing for a US study abroad programme (Athens, Greece) before joining the University of York in 2021.

Research

Overview

My research interests include: the role of previous experience in student engagement with academic skills; inclusivity and decolonisation of teaching and learning; experiential and on-site teaching and learning; representations of early modernity in contemporary historical fiction; space and place in contemporary fiction and non-fiction.

Publications

Selected publications

Harrison, C. (2015). Spatialising early and late modernity: representations of London in Peter Ackroyd’s Hawksmoor and The House of Doctor Dee. Synthesis, 8, 63-80.

Harrison, C. and Spiropoulou, A. (2015). Introduction: history and contemporary literature. Synthesis, 8, 1- 13.

Harrison, C. (2012). In dialogue with the early modern past: gender resistance in Rose Tremain’s Restoration and Music and Silence. European Journal of English Studies, 16 (3), 227-39.

Teaching

Postgraduate

I am part of the Departmental Academic and Communication Skills (DACS) team, and I provide embedded academic skills support to all students on the MSc in Global Marketing. I work closely with the programme faculty to design and teach (or co-teach) programme-specific skills lectures as well as leading module-specific seminars and workshops, and I also offer all students additional support in the form of regular writing retreats, skills tutorials, and drop-in sessions. I am always keen to collaborate with my students on the development of teaching and learning materials, and I am currently working with them to create more effective bridges between the academic, sociocultural, and affective experiences of students past and present.