معرفی
Dr. Helena Ifill is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Language, Literature, Music and Visual Culture at the University of Aberdeen, where she has been teaching since 2019. She previously taught at the University of Sheffield from 2010 to 2019. Her academic roles include Co-Director of the Centre for the Novel and Secretary of the Victorian Popular Fiction Association. She is also Co-Series-Editor of the critical monograph series Key Popular Women Writers and Co-Editor of Victorian Popular Fictions.
Helena Ifill earned her PhD in English Literature from the University of Sheffield in 2009, where she also completed an MA in Nineteenth-Century Studies.
Her research centers on Victorian popular fiction, sensation fiction, and the Gothic, with a particular interest in intersections of gender, genre, science, and medicine. She explores how literary forms engage with urban space, time, and affect, especially in 19th-century British literature. Her work contributes significantly to debates in literary urban studies and the cultural history of the novel.
Her recent publication in Time, the City, and the Literary Imagination (2021) analyzes the representation of temporal experience and urban movement in Wilkie Collins’s Basil. The article reflects broader trends in her scholarship: examining how narrative form captures fleeting sensations, temporal disjunctions, and the psychological impact of city life in Victorian fiction.
- Co-Director, Centre for the Novel
- Secretary, Victorian Popular Fiction Association
- Co-Series-Editor, Key Popular Women Writers
- Co-Editor, Victorian Popular Fictions
Dr. Ifill is actively involved in shaping the field through editorial leadership and scholarly collaboration. While no specific grants are mentioned, her editorial roles and publication in a Palgrave Macmillan volume indicate sustained research activity and peer recognition. She is accepting PhD students, suggesting ongoing mentorship and supervision.
She is associated with the Centre for the Novel at the University of Aberdeen, a research hub dedicated to the study of the novel across historical periods and cultural contexts. This center supports interdisciplinary dialogue, public events, and scholarly publications, aligning with Dr. Ifill’s collaborative and editorial endeavors.
