Dr Emily Cuming
Humanities and Social Science
Faculty of Arts Professional and Social Studies
Email: E.M.Cuming@ljmu.ac.uk
Telephone: 0151 231 3076
My main research interests centre on British literature, culture and social history from the nineteenth century to the present day. My first monograph, Housing, Class and Gender in Modern British Writing, 1880-2012 (Cambridge University Press, 2016) is a literary study of Britain’s housing story through the peripheral settings of slums, boarding houses, bedsits and council estates. My second book, Maritime Relations: Life, Labour and Literature at the Water's Edge, 1830-1914 (Cambridge University Press, forthcoming 2025) explores the figure of the ordinary sailor, maritime families, and questions of class and literary culture in the long nineteenth century. My other research projects focus on: ‘ordinary’ life writing and the archive; working-class girlhood in Victorian and Edwardian Britain; representations of orphanages and institutionalised childhood; port cities and material culture.
Before joining the department in January 2017 I was a Research Fellow for three years in the School of English at the University of Leeds. Prior to that I lived and worked in Los Angeles, California for seven years, teaching literature and interdisciplinary humanities at Scripps College, Harvey Mudd College, the University of Redlands, and Whittier College.
I lead three undergraduate modules: 5125ENGL Life Stories; 6109ENGL Our House: Representing Domestic Space; 3109FDNENG Waterscapes. I also teach on the MA course 7106ENGLIT Place: Imagining Place in Modern Times.
I am currently supervising three PhD projects and warmly welcome enquiries from students considering doctoral research in any of my research areas.
I am an editor of Key Words: A Journal of Cultural Materialism and an editorial board member of the Journal of Victorian Culture. With Dr Lucinda Matthews-Jones, I co-lead the Home and Domestic Cultures research network at LJMU. I am a committee member of the Research Institute for Literature and Cultural History and a board member of the Centre for Port and Maritime History.
Degrees
2006, University of Manchester, UK, PhD
2002, University of Manchester, UK, MA
2001, University of Manchester, UK, BA Hons English & Russian
Highlighted publications
Cuming E. 2016. Housing, Class and Gender in Modern British Writing, 1880-2012 Cambridge University Press 9781107150188 DOI Publisher Url
Journal article
Cuming E, O'Brien P. 2024. Introduction: The Raymond Williams Centenary Issue Key Words: A Journal of Cultural Materialism, 21 :5-10 Publisher Url
Allen V, Bohata K, Braithwaite P, Cuming EM, Von Rosenberg I, Woodward K. 2021. On Working with Williams: Five Female Perspectives Coils of the Serpent, 2021 :63-81 Publisher Url Public Url
Cuming EM. 2019. At Home in the World?: The Ornamental Life of Sailors in Victorian Sailortown Victorian Literature and Culture, 47 :463-485 DOI Publisher Url Public Url
Rogers H, Cuming EM. 2019. ‘Revealing Fragments: Close and Distant Reading of Working-Class Autobiography’ Family and Community History, 21 :180-201 DOI Publisher Url Public Url
Cuming E. 2013. Private Lives, Social Housing: Female Coming-of-Age Stories on the British Council Estate Contemporary Women's Writing, 7 :328-345 DOI Publisher Url
Cuming E. 2013. ‘Home is home be it never so homely’: Reading Mid-Victorian Slum Interiors Journal of Victorian Culture, 18 :368-386 DOI Publisher Url
Cuming E. 2006. The Order of Things Past: Ciaran Carson's Autobiographical Bricolage Life Writing, 3 :17-39 DOI Publisher Url
Internet publication
Cuming E. 2023. Writing Home: Nineteenth-Century Sailors’ Personal Logbooks Author Url Publisher Url
Chapters
Cuming EM. 2022. Spaces of Girlhood: Autobiographical Recollections of Late Nineteenth- and Early Twentieth-Century Working-Class Childhood Joseph H, Holmes V, Nevalainen L. The Working Class at Home, 1770-1940 :99-121 Palgrave Macmillan DOI Publisher Url Public Url
Cuming EM. 2018. Leave to Remain: Bedsits, B&Bs and Borders in Contemporary Fictions of Asylum Briganti C, Mezei K. Living with Strangers: Bedsits and Boarding Houses in Modern English Life, Literature and Film :161-176 Bloomsbury Academic. London 978-1-3500-1652-1 DOI Publisher Url Public Url
Cuming E. Makeshift Dolls and Working-class Childhood, c. 1880-1930 Holmes V, Harley J. Objects of Poverty Bloomsbury Academic. London Publisher Url
Books (authored)
Cuming E. 2016. Housing, Class and Gender in Modern British Writing, 1880-2012 Cambridge University Press 9781107150188 DOI Publisher Url
Book review
Cuming EM. 2016. Home in British Working-Class Fiction Key Words: A Journal of Cultural Materialism, 14 :128-130
Cuming EM. Anglo-Irish Autobiography: Class, Gender and the Forms of Narrative Irish Studies Review, 14
Conference presentation:
Oral presentation, University of Sheffield, Oral History and the History of Childhood, 'There was nothing anywhere on paper': Transcribing an Oral History of Orphanage Life. 2025
Oral presentation, Newcastle University, Children's History Society conference, 'Childhood, Memory and Institutional Place: Life Stories from the Liverpool Seaman's Orphanage'. 2024
Oral presentation, The Royal Danish Academy, Copenhagen, Denmark, STAY HOME - New perspectives on the home, Writing Home: Sailors' Journals and the Forging of Kinship. 2022
Oral presentation, University of Turku, Turku, Finland, International Auto/Biography Association (IABA) conference; Life-Writing: Imagining the Past, Present and Future, Sea Diaries: Life Writing and Oceanic Time. 2022
Oral presentation, Objects of Poverty, 1100-2021 - Online Conference, 'Objects of Desire: Dolls and Dollhouses in Memoirs of Working-Class Girlhood'. 2021
Oral presentation, University of Exeter, 'Victorian Patterns', British Association of Victorian Studies (BAVS) Conference, ‘Ornamental Sailors: Surface Readings of the Victorian Seafarer’. 2018
Oral presentation, The National Archives, Fragmentary Lives: The Survival and Interpretation of Historic Ego Documents, ‘New Directions for Studying Working-Class Autobiography’ (with Dr Helen Rogers). 2018
Oral presentation, Edinburgh Napier University, Crime Fiction(s): Victorian and Neo-Victorian Narratives of Crime and Punishment, ‘Prison Voices in the Classroom: Crime, Punishment, and Pedagogy in the Digital Age' (with Dr Jude Piesse). 2018
Oral presentation, Liverpool John Moores University, North West Print Culture Network meeting, 'Digital Victorians: Investigating the Victorians in the 21st Century'. 2017
Oral presentation, Liverpool John Moores University, Rethinking the Institution, ‘Looking Out for “Jack Ashore”: Ship-Shape Life in the Victorian Sailors’ Home'. 2017
Oral presentation, University of Bristol, TaPRA: Theatre and Performance Research Association, 'Beyond Hosts and Guests: Co-Production and Questions of Hospitality in Practice Research'. 2016
Oral presentation, University of East Anglia, Changing the Future Research Landscape, ‘Spaces of Co-Production: Reflections on Working with Community Organisations and Architects’ with Dr Lisa Procter and Gemma Nash (Venture Arts). 2016
Oral presentation, University of East Anglia, Changing the Future Research Landscape, 'Hospitable Research?' (with Dr Alison Jeffers). 2016
Oral presentation, University of Riverside, California, CSA: Cultural Studies Association, ‘Hospitality Praxis: Problematising the Power Relations of Co-Production Through the Arts of Hospitality’. 2015
Oral presentation, University of Wolverhampton, Urban History Group, ‘The Use of Domestic Evidence in the Production of Urban Knowledge: Henry Mayhew’s Morning Chronicle Investigation’. 2015
Oral presentation, University of Newcastle, The Country House in Britain, 1914-2013, ‘Unreliable Narration and the British Country House’. 2014
Oral presentation, The Geffreye Museum, London (Museum of the Home), Domestic Methodologies, ‘“Home is Home be it Never so Homely”: Reading the Mid-Victorian Slum Interior’. 2012
Oral presentation, University of Nottingham, Domestic Imaginaries, 'Secret Spheres: Images of Homework in the Mid-Victorians Interiors of the Poor'. 2012
Other invited event:
University of Bristol, Invited speaker at AHRC-funded network conference: 'Absent Sailor, Orphan Child: Victorian Institutions and the Construction of the Maritime Family', Mariners: Religion, Race and Empire in British Ports, 1800-1914. 2024
Online presentation, Guest speaker for postgraduate network reflecting on working with archives of autobiography, 'Fragments of a Life: Reading Working-Class Autobiographies in the Archive' for Exploding the Archive postgraduate network series. 2023
Tate Liverpool, Invited presentation for the launch of the Research Institute for Literature and Cultural History, Liverpool John Moores University., ‘Seeing the World: Diaries, Journals, Sketches and Other Sailors’ Writing’. 2019
Institute for Historical Research (IHR), London, Invited paper for IHR Winter Conference on 'Home: New Histories of Living., ‘“A Bit of Place”: Home, Work and Gender in Mid-Victorian Surveys of Working-Class Environments’. 2018
Leeds Humanities Research Institute, University of Leeds., Invited presentation for the Sadler Seminar Series: 'Shh! Encounters in the Unquiet Library'., ‘Archives and “Ordinary” Lives’.. 2018
University of Warwick, Invited paper for Victorian World Literatures conference, 'At Home in the World? Sailors’ Homes, Port Cities and Melville’s Redburn’. 2016
School of English, University of Leeds, Joint presentation with Prof Katherine Mullin; invited talk for School of English research seminar, 'Barmaids and Landladies'. 2016
University of Leeds, Invited research paper for the Victorian Research Group seminar series, School of English., 'Home Truths: Re-visiting Henry Mayhew’s Morning Chronicle Survey’.. 2015
University of Leeds, Invited speaker and participant at AHRC–funded Research Network workshop, ''Home, Crisis and the Imagination'., 'Housing and Culture'.. 2014
Nottingham Trent University, Invited speaker at English Faculty Research Seminar Series., 'At Home with Strangers: The Social Space of the Boarding-House in Twentieth-Century British Fiction’. 2014
Award:
Research Institute for Literature and Cultural History, LJMU, Research and engagement funding for 'Voices from the Orphanage: Recovering Stories of the Liverpool Seamen’s Orphan Institution'. £495. 2023
Liverpool John Moores University, QR funding for 'Maritime Relations: Sailors in British Literature, Culture and Society, 1837-1915'. £480. 2023
Danish National Research Foundation Centre for Privacy Studies, Travel bursary, €300 (£257). 2022
Liverpool John Moores University, QR funding for 'Raymond Williams at 100: Centenary Engagements'. £250. 2022
Liverpool John Moores University, QR research funding for 'Global Relations: Sailors and the Maritime Imagination, 1830-1915'. £750. 2021
Liverpool John Moores University, QR research award for Writing Lives: The Autobiography of the Working Class in Britain, 1600 to Present, £1986. 2018
National Co-ordinating Centre for Public Engagement, Winner of the NCCPE Engage 2016 Prize for Public Engagement in Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences for cross-disciplinary, arts-based research project 'Around the Toilet: Co-Creating Intersectional Understandings of Gender, Disability and Access’. £1500. 2016
British Association of Irish Studies, British Association of Irish Studies postgraduate prize. 2005
Arts and Humanities Research Council, Fully-funded Phd studentship. 2002
University of Manchester, Margaret Johnson (Yates) Prize. Prize for the postgraduate student within the department with an outstanding average mark. 2002
Arts and Humanities Research Council, Fully-funded MA studentship. 2001
Conference organisation:
The Bluecoat, Liverpool, James Hanley: New Directions. 2023
Organiser, Bodies, Identities & Design: A Speaker Event, Manchester Metropolitan University. 2015
Invited co-organiser and convener of ‘Gender, Space and Architecture’ session, for British Academy-sponsored event 'Is Gender Still Relevant?', University of Bradford, September 2014.. 2014
Co-organiser, Making Use of Culture, University of Manchester. 2005
Media Coverage:
The New Issue: Issue 2 (Big Issue North). Interviewed for 'The House, As Depicted in Literature and the Arts', by Deborah Mulhearn 2020
Fellowships:
Royal Museums Greenwich, Caird Short-term Research Fellowship. 2022
Research Grants Awarded:
Duration of research project: 4 months, Grant value (£): 10,000, AHRC Connected Communities, Lisa Procter (Manchester Metropolitan University); Jenny Slater (Sheffield Hallam University), ''Servicing Utopia: Critical Considerations for Social Change Through Accessible Design'. 2016
Duration of research project: 4 months, Grant value (£): 20,000, AHRC Connected Communities, Jenny Slater (Sheffield Hallam University); Lisa Procter (Manchester Metropolitan University), 'Travelling Toilet Tales'. 2016
Duration of research project: 9 months, Grant value (£): 46,000, AHRC Connected Communities, Jenny Slater (Sheffield Hallam University); Lisa Procter (Manchester Metropolitan University), ‘Around the Toilet: Co-Creating Intersectional Understandings of Gender, Disability and Access’. 2015
Duration of research project: 11 months, Grant value (£): 55,000, AHRC Connected Communities, Naomi Millner (University of Bristol); Alison Jeffers (University of Manchester), ‘The Hospitality Project: Exploring Hospitality as an Arts-Based Praxis to Remake Relationships of Co-Production’. 2015
Editorial boards:
Editor, Key Words: A Journal of Cultural Materialism, https://raymondwilliams.co.uk/journal/. 2015
Editorial board member, Journal of Victorian Culture.
Membership of professional bodies:
Higher Education Academy, Fellow.
Royal Historical Society, Fellow.