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Holly Furneaux  BA, MA, PhD (University of London)

Professor Holly Furneaux

(she/her)

BA, MA, PhD (University of London)

Users
Available for postgraduate supervision

Teams and roles for Holly Furneaux

Overview

I teach and research Victorian literature and culture, with an emphasis on the cultural history of war, gender, the history of sexuality, and the history of emotions.

My recent AHRC project 'Strange Meetings: Enemy Encounters 1800-2020'  culminated with the publication of a co-edited interdisciplinary collection, Enemy Encounters in Modern Warfare and my latest monograph Enemy Intimacies and Strange Meetings in Writings of Conflict 1800-1918 (forthcoming Oxford University Press, May 2025). This explores emotional and material exchanges across sides in literature and life-writing with attention to truces, battle aftermath, and prisoners of war. The research is featured in Imperial War Museum's exhibition 'War and the Mind' and helped to shape the acclaimed Coming Home, a comic featuring veterans' stories. I am now working on a cultural history of international adoption in the Victorian period.

My previous books include Military Men of Feeling: Emotion, Touch and Masculinity in the Crimean War (2016) and Queer Dickens: Erotics, Families, Masculinities (2009). I curated an exhibition ‘Created in Conflict: Soldier Art from the Crimean War to the Present’ at Compton Verney in 2018 and was adviser to the BBC’s Dickensian (screened 2015-16).

I have supervised a range of great PhDs and would be glad to hear from post-graduate and post-doctoral applicants.

Publication

2024

2020

2018

2016

2015

2014

2013

2012

2011

2010

2009

2007

2005

Adrannau llyfrau

Erthyglau

Llyfrau

Research

My research is in Victorian literature and culture, with an emphasis on the cultural history of war, gender, forms of family, sexuality, touch and emotion.

My recent AHRC project 'Strange Meetings: Enemy Encounters 1800-2020' , in partnership with Imperial War Museum, Military Medical Museum, and Re-Live, an arts for health charity, explored soldiers' interactions between sides. It culminated with the publication of a co-edited interdisciplinary collection, Enemy Encounters in Modern Warfare and my latest monograph Enemy Intimacies and Strange Meetings in Writings of Conflict 1800-1918 (forthcoming Oxford University Press, May 2025). This explores emotional and material exchanges across sides in literature and life-writing with attention to truces, battle aftermath, and prisoners of war. The research is featured in Imperial War Museum's exhibition 'War and the Mind' and helped to shape the acclaimed Coming Home, a comic featuring veterans' stories. This feature in The Conversation gives an overview of the project and its impacts. 

Having published an essay on adoptions of enemy children in wartime, I am now working on a cultural history of international adoption in the Victorian period. I am interested in the personal and political dimensions of representations and lived experiences of the children and families involved, and how these are shaped by imperialism.

My earlier AHRC funded project Military Men of Feeling, in partnership with the National Army Museum, focused on the Crimean War. The project investigated overlooked aspects of soldiers' felt experience, such as family feeling in regiments, soldier adoptions, the production of trench art, and battlefield nursing. Recognising a widespread cultural emphasis on the gentle soldier, this project deposed persistent ideas about Victorian masculinity as well as enhancing our understanding of the complexities of battlefield feeling. It resulted in an OUP book in 2016 and an exhibition in 2018 at Compton Verney art gallery ‘Created in Conflict: Soldier Art from the Crimean War to the Present’.

Following my first book Queer Dickens (2009) I continue to work in Dickens studies, and have recently published articles on queer Dickens fan fiction and on Dickens’s antisocial women. I was an adviser for the BBC’s Dickensian (screened 2015-16) and for over a decade was co-organiser of the annual Dickens Day in London.

Biography

Holly joined the School of English, Communication & Philosophy at Cardiff in 2015 from University of Leicester, where she was Reader in Victorian Studies.

Supervisions

Current supervision

Ethan Evans

Ethan Evans

Teaching Associate and PhD student

Rebekah Sloane Mather

Rebekah Sloane Mather

Ellie-Mai Pope

Ellie-Mai Pope

Sobia Bushra Bushra

Sobia Bushra Bushra

Contact Details

Email FurneauxH@cardiff.ac.uk
Telephone +44 29208 76073
Campuses John Percival Building, Room 2.09, Colum Drive, Cardiff, CF10 3EU