Tzen Sam
Thesis Title: Recovering the female voice - Ibsen's early English translators
Supervisor: Prof. Kirsten E. Shepherd
Research interests: Victorian and modern literature, C20th and C21st drama, translation studies, theatre and performance studies.
Doctoral research:
My research focuses on the 'Ibsen battles' of the late-Victorian period when Henrik Ibsen's plays were first translated and performed in England. In particular, I consider the work of three women (Catherine Ray, Henrietta Frances Lord and Eleanor Marx) whose translations first introduced Ibsen to England. William Archer's subsequent project to canonise his translations of Ibsen as the authoritative English version have obscured the contributions of these women. Through close textual analysis of their pioneering translations, I reflect on what Luise von Flotow calls 'the phenomenon of the lost female translator' and argue that these female-authored translations of Ibsen were pivotal both in shaping the early reception of Ibsen in England and enhancing the female voices and feminist implications of Ibsen's work.
Since 2022, I have also been the Research Assistant on the collaboration between Professor Kirsten Shepherd and Breach Theatre to devise a new play on Laura Kieler (the Danish model for Ibsen's A Doll's House). This project has generated two significant outputs: the forthcoming Breach production, Burning Down the House, which will open at the Schwarzman Centre in September 2026, and an Oxford World's Classics volume (which I co-edited with Kirsten Shepherd) containing the first English translation of Laura Kieler's play Men of Honour alongside new translations of Ibsen's A Doll's House and When We Dead Awaken (translated by Gaye Kynoch, published November 2025).
https://www.torch.ox.ac.uk/my-name-is-laura-kieler-the-true-story-of-ibs...
https://www.schwarzmancentre.ox.ac.uk/whats-on/burning-down-the-house-c7...
Publications
Journal articles:
Oct 2025 - 'Recovering the female voice: Eleanor Marx's translation of Ibsen's En folkefiende (An Enemy of the People)'. Ibsen Studies, Vol 25, Issue 2.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15021866.2025.2568313#d1e104
Books:
Nov 2025 - Henrik Ibsen and Laura Kieler, A Doll's House, Men of Honour, and When We Dead Awaken. Oxford World's Classics. (Oxford: OUP) Translated by Gaye Kynoch. Co-edited with Kirsten E. Shepherd.
Other activities:
- Co-convenor of the TORCH Reimagining Performance Network (2022-2023)
- Co-convenor of the TORCH Scandinavian Studies Network (2024-2025)
Teaching experience:
- FHS dissertation supervisor for a range of topics in modern drama, including Arthur Miller, Samuel Beckett, Sarah Kane, Breach Theatre, Suzie Miller, George Bernard Shaw;
- Co-supervised an MSt dissertation in World-literature on Chen Hengzhe (a scholar, novelist, and playwright in C20th China);
- Supervised a visiting student's Independent Research Project on law and literature in George Bernard Shaw's Saint Joan;
- Supervising visiting students on Chinese literature in translation (Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Investiture of the Gods) and Lu Xun, Hu Shi, and the birth of Chinese Ibsenism.
- Supervising visiting students on Victorian literature.
