Current PhD Students

Francesca Killoran

Thesis Title:

Whores, Harlots, and Harlequins: Locating Female Sympathies in 1790s Prostitute Narratives

Supervisor:

Dr Emma Major

Description:

My doctoral thesis will look at the politics of sex worker’s bodies during the politically tumultuous decade of the 1790s. Over the course of the project, I will explore the political contexts of sex work to understand how women writers adopt and reform the conventions of eighteenth-century sentimental prostitute narratives. While my chapters will draw primarily on women writers, my discussions will contextualize these through a range of historical sources that discuss sex work and provide a comprehensive look at contemporary print perspectives.

My research focuses on what I call the Sentimental, Magdalen, and the Revolutionary prostitute narratives of the 1790s. Across each of these types I will draw attention to the difference between the urban and the rural when it comes to attitudes towards sex workers and how these different tropes and sympathies change across the revolutionary decade of the 1790s.

My wider research interests include: the history of gender and sexuality; literature and culture of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; women’s writing and empowerment.

I received both my BA in English and Related Literature, and my MA in Literature of the Romantic Period from the University of York. I am also the Digital Events Fellow for the British Association for Romantic Studies.