Michelle Beth Chong

Thesis Title: Realism, Freedom, Reform: Modes of Bodily Movement in Nineteenth-Century Literature

Supervisor: Professor Helen Small

Research Interests: Victorian Literature, Embodiment, Phenomenology, Gesture Theory, Spatial Theory, Material Culture

Doctoral Research: My research brings together archival material and literary works to examine the ways in which Victorian print culture challenged conventional public opinion on cultures of embodiment and movement, and thus helped change the cultural norms and expectations of late Victorian society. I aim to call attention to perceived changes in physical self-expression arising from machinery and labour, modes of transportation and mobility, dress and freedom of movement, cross-cultural encounter, travel, and imperialism, and the effects of an ever-widening worldview on representations of regional 'corporeal styles'. Amidst these developments, writers such as Elizabeth Gaskell, George Eliot, Thomas Hardy, Ménie Muriel Dowie, Joseph Conrad, and Margaret Brooke captured the complexities of the day while pushing for reform on labour conditions, women’s rights, and ideas on freedom, convention, and social mobility in pluralistic societies. Ultimately, my research contributes to an ongoing interest in diversifying the sensory frameworks used when trying to comprehend the lived experiences of a society. By proposing a framework to examine the portrayal of bodily movement, I hope to encourage closer examinations of the kinaesthetic and proprioceptive senses in literature.

Forthcoming Publications: 'Ruth (1853)' in The Routledge Companion to Elizabeth Gaskell (2025)

Teaching: I have experience as a Graduate Teaching Assistant on 'Literature in English 1760-1830' (Paper 5 with Professor Ros Ballaster) and 'Global Victorians' (Paper 6 with Professor Michèle Mendelssohn and Professor Helen Small). I have also previously taught secondary school English Literature and Drama.