Emily Cuming

Dr. Emily Cuming is a Senior Lecturer in the Humanities and Social Science school at Liverpool John Moores University, specializing in British literature, culture, and social history from the 19th century to the present. Her research focuses on maritime relations, working-class girlhood, life writing, and representations of domestic spaces including council estates, slums, and bedsits.

• PhD, MA, BA in English & Russian from University of Manchester (2006, 2002, 2001)
• Editor of Key Words: A Journal of Cultural Materialism
• Co-leader of the Home and Domestic Cultures research network
• Committee member of the Research Institute for Literature and Cultural History
• Board member of the Centre for Port and Maritime History

Her research combines literary analysis with historical and cultural studies, emphasizing material culture, port cities, and marginalized voices. Recent publications include Maritime Relations: Life, Labour and Literature at the Water’s Edge, 1830-1914 (Cambridge University Press, forthcoming 2025) and Housing, Class and Gender in Modern British Writing, 1880-2012 (CUP, 2016). She has received multiple research grants including AHRC Connected Communities funding and Liverpool John Moores University QR awards.

Dr. Cuming teaches undergraduate modules on Life Stories, Representing Domestic Space, and Waterscapes, as well as MA courses on Place: Imagining Place in Modern Times. She supervises three PhD projects and welcomes new supervisees in her research areas.

• 2025: Enhancing Research Cultures funding for 'The Sinking of the Lancastria'
• 2024: Editorial board member of Journal of Victorian Culture
• 2023: NCCPE Engage Prize for 'Around the Toilet' project
• 2022: Caird Short-term Research Fellowship
• 2016: NCCPE Engage Prize winner