Nadia Valman

Professor Nadia Valman is a scholar specializing in nineteenth- and twentieth-century British literature with a focus on urban culture, religion, gender, and migrancy. She holds a professorship in Urban Literature at Queen Mary University of London's School of English and Drama. Her research emphasizes London's East End, particularly its literary representation and Jewish cultural history. Valman teaches undergraduate and postgraduate courses on London's literary heritage, Victorian fiction, and modern urban writing. She has authored monographs like The Jewess in Nineteenth-Century British Literary Culture (2007) and is currently completing Literal East London for Princeton University Press.

Valman's academic journey includes studies at the Universities of Cambridge, Leeds, and London (PhD). She previously taught at the University of Southampton before returning to Queen Mary in 2007. Her work bridges scholarly research with public engagement, co-directing the Raphael Samuel History Centre and organizing conferences on East End writers like Israel Zangwill and Arthur Morrison. She has secured prestigious fellowships, including a British Academy Mid-Career Fellowship (2014–15) and a Leverhulme Research Fellowship (2019–20).

Her research explores intersections of Jewish identity, space, and literary representation, with edited volumes such as Routledge Handbook to Contemporary Jewish Cultures (2014) and British Jewish Women Writers (2014). She actively supervises PhD students on topics ranging from East London heritage to Jewish women’s suffrage campaigns. Her public engagement work includes walking tours and collaborations with museums to democratize historical narratives.

Valman’s awards reflect her contributions to interdisciplinary scholarship, including her AHRC-funded project on the Jewish East End and her role in shaping East London’s literary historiography. Her teaching philosophy integrates fieldwork and community engagement, exemplified by courses like ESH295: London: Walking the City.