Laurel Forster

Laurel Forster is an Associate Professor in Cultural History at the University of Portsmouth, affiliated with the School of Film, Media, and Creative Technologies (Faculty of Creative and Cultural Industries). Her research focuses on women's cultures, print media, feminism, and media representations of women, with a specialization in women’s magazines, cookbooks, and domestic texts. She has authored monographs like *Magazine Movements: Women's Culture, Feminisms and Media Form* and co-led the Heritage Lottery-funded 'Women's Community Activism in Portsmouth since 1960' project. Current projects include *The Determined Sewist: Domestic Sewing and the Media*, exploring media’s role in domestic practices.

Her work bridges historical and contemporary analyses of feminist print culture, emphasizing how periodicals and domestic media shape women's agency. She has edited special editions on 'Cookbook Politics' (Food and Foodways, 2023) and co-edited collections on women’s periodicals (2020). Her research also addresses 1970s British television, May Sinclair’s modernism, and wartime narratives.

Notable grants include the Heritage Lottery Fund for oral history projects documenting women’s activism in Portsmouth. She supervises PhD students in cultural history and feminist media studies.