MA Candidates
Beth Chapman
BA English Studies (Otago)
Topic: Animal Language: Interspecies Interactions in the Works of Clarice Lispector and Jorie Graham
Emailt chabe361@student.otago.ac.nz
Pearl Gray
BA English Studies (Otago)
Topic: Beyond the Psychoanalytic: The Critical and Historical Representation of Undiagnosed Mental Illness in Fiction
Email grape238@student.otago.ac.nz
Nat Moore
BA English Studies (Otago)
MA Topic: Computational Poetry
Email moona740@student.otago.ac.nz
Orion Carey-Clark
BA Hons (Otago)
MA Topic: Violence in the Theatre and Film of Martin McDonagh
Research Interests: Irish Theatre and film, Martin McDonagh, Representation of violence in Irish theatre, Irish theatre history,
Email orioncareyclark@gmail.com
PhD Candidates
Demi Chen 
MA English (Shenzhen University)
PhD Topic: Cross-cultural encounters in contemporary Chinese long poems
Research Interests: comparative literature; poetry and music; T. S. Eliot; modernism; intertextuality; feminism
Email demichancxm@gmail.com
Majella Cullinane 
BA English and Italian (University College Dublin) HDipELT (University of Limerick) MA Publishing (Oxford Brookes University) MLitt in Creative Writing (St Andrews University)
PhD Topic: Representations of the island in Irish fiction, with particular focus on the short story. My PhD is in Creative Practice, and will comprise of critical and creative writing.
Research Interests: Short story, poetry, fiction, and creative writing pedagogy
Email culma285@otago.ac.nz
Sarper Dorter
Topic: From Yesterday’s Rubble to the Futuer Edgelands: Designated Temporalities and the Ruinscapes of Africa
Email dorsa219@student.otago.ac.nz
Jasmine Gallagher
PhD Topic: The New Sincerity in Contemporary New Zealand Poetry and Art
Email galja734@student.otago.ac.nz
Roberto Suazo Gomez
(or Robert, if you prefer)
Topic: Women’s Laughter in Classical and Medieval Literature and Culture
Email suaro026@student.otago.ac.nz
Paramjeet Kaur 
BSc (University of Delhi, India), MA in English Literature (Shiv Nadar University, India)
PhD Topic: Dynamics of spectacular theatrical violence in early modern tragedies
Research Interests: Early modern history and drama (tragedies specifically), violence and spectacle, punitive measures of the early modern times
Email kaupa962@student.otago.ac.nz.
Claire Lacey
Topic: Poetry and Brain Injury
Email laccl714@student.otago.ac.nz
Emer Lyons
Qualifications: B.A. (Joint Honours) Archaeology and Sociology, UCC, Cork, Ireland ; M.A. Sociology, UCC, Cork, Ireland
PhD Topic: Shame in Queer Contemporary Poetry in Ireland and New Zealand
Research Interests: Queer Theory, Poetic and Lyric Theory, Feminism, Affect Theory, Sociology of Emotion, Queer Theology, Irish Studies, Performance Studies.
Email lyoem484@student.otago.ac.nz or emerlyonsbandon@gmail.com
Robyn Maree Pickens
Qualifications: MA in Art History
PhD Topic: An eco-poetics of love: eros, saina and syntropy in the work of Juliana Spahr, Craig Santos Perez, Sarah Smuts-Kennedy.
Research Interests: Ecological aesthetics in critical and creative practices. Robyn's poetry and text-based work was exhibited at Artspace, Auckland in March 2018, and she curated an exhibition on ecological themes at Blue Oyster Project Space, Dunedin in May-June 2018. Robyn’s poetry has appeared in SAND (2018), Cordite (2018), Plumwood Mountain (2018), Matador Review (2017), Jacket 2 (2017), and her poetry criticism has appeared in Rain Taxi (2018) and Jacket 2 (2017). She was a finalist of the 2018 Sarah Broom Poetry Prize judged by Eileen Myles, and the winner of the takahē Monica Taylor Poetry Prize 2018.
Email robynmareepickens@outlook.co.nz https://robynmareepickens.com/
Julian Real
Qualifications: BA (Hons) in English, MA English (Otago)
Topic: Making Men: The ‘Cockered’ Child and the Recreation of Masculinity in Late Medieval and Early Modern Literature and Drama
Email reaju293@student.otago.ac.nz
April Salchert
BA English (University of Illinois at Chicago), MA English Literature (Uppsala University)
PhD Topic: "Encounters with the Other in Digital Fiction" examines how authors of digital fiction express Otherness, and how digital fiction may provoke or prevent empathy for the marginalized Other.
Research Interests: digital fiction, game studies, postcolonial studies, gender studies, and the digital humanities
Email april@salchert.com
Suzanne (Zexuan) Sun 
BA British and American Literature (Guangdong University of Foreign Studies), MA Translation (Chinese University of Hong Kong)
PhD Topic: A quest for utopia in New Zealand: A comparative study of the utopian writings and practices of James K. Baxter and Gu Cheng
Research Interests: Comparative literature, Utopian studies, translation studies, poetry and politics
Email suzanneszx@gmail.com
Elizabeth Wilson
MNZM, BA French and German (Canterbury), MA (Hons) First Class German (Canterbury),
GradDip (Otago) Endorsed in English, DipTchg (Christchurch Teachers' College), CELTA (CCEL)
PhD Topic: Re-gendering the discourse of settler colonialism. An analysis of selected works by Robin Hyde and Elspeth Sandys and their contributions to the re-gendering of the settler colonialist discourse in New Zealand literature through metaphors related to family, marriage, motherhood, childhood, adolescence, illegitimacy and adoption, and through their depictions of a re-gendered search for personal and creative identity against the backdrop of New Zealand's settler colonial and post-colonial search for self-definition and national identity
Research Interests: New Zealand literature; settler colonialism and post-colonialism; gender and identity; autobiography and memoir
Email wilel912@student.otago.ac.nz
Sue Wootton 
PhD Topic: Beyond disease to human meaning: discovering illness in literature
Research Interests: Medical humanities, creative writing
Email suewootton3@gmail.com
Please also see her entry on the Scottish Studies webpage and her creative writing website
Yu Zhang 张宇
PhD Topic: Reading Poetry in English through the Chinese Poetic Concept of “Idea-scape,” or yijing 意境
Email zhayu888@student.otago.ac.nz
