Personal profile
Overview
Judith Popova is a Lecturer at the University of Hertfordshire in English Literature and Creative Writing. She was previously a Postdoctoral Researcher and Guest Lecturer at the University of Surrey where she attained her PhD in 2022. She is a recipient of a fully-funded Research Fellowship at the University of Surrey. Judith has presented papers on exilic literature at international interdisciplinary conferences and is an Advance HE Fellow, a member of the Association for Scottish Literature, and the Muriel Spark Society in Edinburgh, Scotland. Judith has been an editor for the University of Surrey's collobrative project with HMP Downview on Women's Prison Writing, and a peer-reviewer. Her creative publications include a collection of poetry and short stories in the Stag Hill Literary Journal and a chapter in 'Unlocking the Grid: A Documentary Novel of the Plague Year' (foreword by Iain Sinclair).
Her forthcoming article ‘The Western Gaze and the Eastern European Refugee in Muriel Spark’s Territorial Rights (1979)’ will be published in the journal of Modern Fiction Studies later this year (2024). Judith is currently working on her monograph - titled 'Exile in Muriel Spark's Fiction' - that studies themes of exile and the figure of the stranger in the work of Muriel Spark.
Teaching specialisms
Judith has taught undergraduate and postgraduate modules at UK Universities in nineteenth-century literature, contemporary literature, creative writing, screenwriting, game writing, children's literature, early modern literature, research and employability skills. In 2023/2024, modules included Euro-Crime on Page and Screen; American Literature to 1900; Employability Skills; Border Crossing Modern Literature from around the World; American Voices: Introduction to US Literature and Culture.
In the academic year 2024/2025:
Texts Up Close Reading and Interpretation
Studies in Twentieth-Century Literature 1900-1945
American Literature to 1900
Ways of Reading Literature and Theory
Age of Transition the Victorians and Modernity
Twentieth-Century US Literature and Culture
Education/Academic qualification
English Literature, PhD, Versions of the Female Stranger: Muriel Spark's Preoccupation with Exile, University of Surrey
… → 2022
English Literature, MA, University of Surrey
… → 2018
Liberal Arts with a Major in English, BA, HEI: King's College London
… → 2016