Category: News

CIRCL PhD student Xiaoyu Hou passed her viva on 22-07-2024 with her PhD thesis on ‘‘‘It Can Point to the World”: A Close Analysis of Representation in (Children’s) Literary Criticism, Psychology and Pedagogy’. Supervisor: Professor Karin Lesnik-Oberstein; External Examiner: Professor Dr Stefan Neubert of the University of Cologne (Germany); Internal Examiner: Dr Neil Cocks. Many congratulations, Xiaoyu!

CIRCL PhD student Krissie Hunt passed her viva on 09-05-2024 with her PhD thesis on ‘Reading Bodies and the Fairy Tale Gaze’. Supervisor: Professor Karin Lesnik-Oberstein; External Examiner: Professor Erica Burman of the University of Manchester; Internal Examiner: Dr Neil Cocks. Many congratulations, Krissie!

CIRCL PhD student Lana Theodoulou (supervisor Dr Neil Cocks) was awarded the ‘People’s Choice’ prize at the 2024 Doctoral Conference for the presentation of a ‘research object’: a crystal from Pokemon.

CIRCL PhD student Alex Hellens passed his viva on 25-06-2024 with his PhD thesis on ‘No Man is an Island: Dethinking Island Methodologies’. Supervisor: Professor Karin Lesnik-Oberstein; External Examiner: Dr Wendy O’Shea-Meddour of the University of Exeter; Internal Examiner: Dr Sue Walsh. Many congratulations, Alex!

CIRCL PhD student Soma Das passed her viva on 03-12-2023 with her PhD thesis on ‘Reading Time and the Time of Reading’. Supervisor: Professor Karin Lesnik-Oberstein; External Examiner: Dr Nick Lee of Warwick University; Internal Examiner: Dr Sue Walsh. Many congratulations, Soma!

New! Extra Masters Scholarships available for 2024-2025, click here. https://www.reading.ac.uk/ready-to-study/study/fees-and-funding/masters-scholarships

CIRCL PhD student Natthavimol (‘Sai’) Wangsittikul passed her viva on 05-10-2023 with her PhD thesis on ‘What is Manga? Reading Representation and Culture’. Supervisor: Professor Karin Lesnik-Oberstein; External Examiner: Professor Ian Parker of Leicester University; Internal Examiner: Dr Neil Cocks. Many congratulations, Sai!

CIRCL PhD student Ian Mulholland passed his PhD on 10-10-2023 with his PhD thesis on ‘The Word Is All That Is The Case: A reading of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico Philosophicus‘. Supervisor: Professor Karin Lesnik-Oberstein; External Examiner: Professor Peter Buse of Liverpool University; Internal Examiner: Dr Neil Cocks! Many congratulations, Ian!

Congratulations to CIRCL PhD student Lana Theodoulou (supervisor: Dr Neil Cocks) for winning the ‘People’s Choice’ award for the ‘Research in an Object’ competition!

See the link for new CIRCL articles published in a 2023 special issue of the journal Humanities guest edited by CIRCL’s Dr Neil Cocks

CIRCL PhD student Grace (Ting Fang) Yeh will speak on ‘Reading on a Loss of Children’s Theatre’, Wednesday March 8th 2023 at 1 pm in Edith Morley room 280 or online access link: https://eu.bbcollab.com/guest/36987e606aa94ce2a37d1945ae6ed824

New ‘Textual Practice’ article by Dr Bonnie McGill on ‘Time, Mourning and Pedagogy in DEVS (the tv series), on reading ‘sight’ also in physics

CIRCL PhD student Liz Harris passed her viva with flying colours on 18-10-2021 with her PhD thesis on ‘”Never Too Rich or Too Thin”: Readings About the Fat Body’. Supervisor: Professor Karin Lesnik-Oberstein; External Examiner: Dr Hannah Anglin-Jaffe of the University of Exeter; Internal Examiner: Dr Neil Cocks! Many congratulations, Liz!

by Professor Karin Lesnik-Oberstein. A children’s publishing house, Lantana publishing, specialising in diversity kindly asked me to write a blog for them about the ‘Myth and Folktale’ option module on our M(Res) in Children’s Literature course.

Dr Neil Cocks and Professor Karin Lesnik-Oberstein have founded a new website to publish CIRCL thinking and reading: The Age of Anti-Psychoanalysis

Masters’ Scholarship from the University of Reading

Congratulations to CIRCL PhD student Rebecca Lindsay on her successful viva on 20-01-2021, with her thesis ‘Psychoanalytic Readings of Language, the Unconscious, and the Desire for the Object’! External Examiner: Professor Daniela Caselli, Internal Examiner: Dr Sue Walsh, Supervisor: Professor Karin Lesnik-Oberstein.

Please note that the Government has approved a new scheme of MA and PhD study loans under favourable terms!

Congratulations to CIRCL PhD student Yuna Nam on her successful viva on 03-07-2020, with her thesis ‘Reading Differences from Children’s Picture Books: Constructing and De-constructing Images and Texts‘!

And a second new book out by CIRCL member Dr Krissie West: Reading the Salem Witch Child: The Guilt of Innocent Blood (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2020)!

New book out for pre-order by CIRCL member Dr Krissie West: Louise May Alcott and the Textual Child: A Critical Theory Approach (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2020)!

In October 2019, Dr Yuko Ashitagawa, a former CIRCL MA and PhD student, was awarded a Distinguished Volunteer Award by the University of Reading in the UK for her efforts since 2005 on behalf of CIRCL Japan!

CIRCL’s Dr Sue Walsh was recently (August 2019) in conversation with Anindya Raychaudhuri and Frances Hardinge in the ‘Proms Plus’ series discussing Kipling’s The Jungle Books.

CIRCL’s Dr Neil Cocks has a new book out! Higher Education Discourse and Deconstruction: Challenging the case for Transparency and Objecthood

CIRCL PhD student Krissie West was nominated as FAHSS Faculty PhD Researcher of the Year for 2014-15 for her research on childhood in the work of the American writer Ralph Waldo Emerson!

CIRCL Korea came to visit CIRCL Reading again, July 2014! Now for a three-day CIRCL Summer School on Children’s Literature.

Former CIRCL PhD student Dr Jess Medhurst won the University’s three-minute thesis competition on June 14th 2013

Publication of a new book by one of our former CIRCL Visiting Fellows, Dr Sandra Dinter We are delighted to announce the publication of a new book by one of our former CIRCL Visiting Fellows, Dr Sandra Dinter: Childhood in the Contemporary English Novel. New York: Routledge, 2019. ISBN: 978-0-367-36193-8. You can find the blurb here .