³Ô¹Ïtv

Publications

Philosophical Psychology Vol 32, pp. 560-583 (2019)

, Anderson Miranda, Butler Christopher, , Finnigan Elizabeth, Garwood Ian, , Kirk Wendy, Kukkonen Karen, Mullally Sinead, Schwan Stephan

Frontiers in Psychology Vol 10 (2019)

Narrative Science Reasoning, Representing and Knowing Since 1800 (2022) (2022)

Mediation and Children's Reading Relationships, Intervention, and Organisation from the Eighteenth Century to the Present (2022) (2022)

Journal for the History of Knowledge Vol 2 (2021)

Nabokov and the Question of Morality Aesthetics, Metaphysics, and the Ethics of Fiction (2016) (2016)

Teaching

I teach on the undergraduate BA degree in English literature. As well as core class teaching in first and second year, I have designed and taught options on 'Oral narratives and fairy tales', 'Theories of literature and wellbeing', 'Literature, mind and brain' and 'Soviet Literature. 

Research Interests

I ask abstract questions about literature: why do we enjoy it; why is it meaningful? I use literary, linguistic and historical analysis as well as cognitive approaches to address these questions. My first two books identified changes in the ways people read and interpreted texts between 1650 and 1750 and why those changes happened. I completed a masters in cognitive science with distinction in 2016 and my work since then has focussed on the cognition of fiction. 

Professional Activities

Peer reviewer

2020

Peer reviewer

2020

Keynote/plenary speaker

15/7/2026

Keynote speaker

15/7/2026

Recipient

9/11/2025

Peer reviewer

2020

Projects

Jajdelska, Elspeth (Principal Investigator)

We aim to nd out how readers build ctional worlds. Fiction reading has powerful and mysterious eects on readers (Sullivan; Tamir). We believe that some of these eects can be explained by the process of world building. If so, this will improve public understanding of ction's power and help to reverse current declines in ction reading (Clark).

01-Jan-2025 - 31-Jan-2027

Jajdelska, Elspeth (Principal Investigator)

01-Jan-2017 - 30-Jan-2023

Jajdelska, Elspeth (Principal Investigator)

02-Jan-2017 - 31-Jan-2019

Jajdelska, Elspeth (Principal Investigator)

14-Jan-2015 - 13-Jan-2016

Soltysek, Raymond Ronald (Academic) Smith, Vivienne (Academic) Jajdelska, Elspeth (Academic)

The aim of this investigation is to explore student teachers’ attitudes bring to their studies towards poetry at an early stage of their career, before they have had any pedagogical input from course tutors on the topic. The investigation will seek to identify these attitudes and the formative influences on these attitudes.

31-Jan-2014 - 30-Jan-2015

Argondizza, Peter (Academic) Fudge, Erica (Academic) Hope, Jonathan (Academic) Jajdelska, Elspeth (Academic) Thorne, Alison (Academic) Hogarth, Alan (Post Grad Student) Clark, Douglas Iain (Post Grad Student) Veerapen, Steven (Post Grad Student) Froehlich, Heather Gayle (Post Grad Student)

Research in Renaissance studies has traditionally been a particular strength of English at the ³Ô¹Ïtv, and this is reflected in the meetings of the Group for Renaissance Research Reading. The group is made up of both staff and postgraduate students and meets frequently during term time to engage with issues current in the field. Our meetings take the form of seminar talks, and group-discussions of recent work which engages with broad cultural aspects of the Renaissance.

The expertise of group members covers a variety of areas. These include Renaissance literature; the history of ideas; the history of language; social and political history; cultural history – with interests in visual, musical, linguistic, and intellectual history, as well as digital approaches to the analysis of texts. The group also has links to the Scottish Institute of Northern Renaissance Studies (SINRS) and the Journal of the Northern Renaissance. (http://www.northernrenaissance.org/)

10-Jan-2011 - 10-Jan-2014