Getting Over the Fear Project Organisers Amy Burge is a Teaching Fellow in the Graduate School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures, where she co-ordinates research skills and methods training for taught and research postgraduates. She is particularly interested in cross-period research methods and in using historical perspectives to think through modern discourses of love, relationships, gender and sexuality. Outside of work she enjoys navigating Edinburgh's cobblestones on her bike and (when it's raining) retreating to the nearest pub.
Victoria Anker gained her BA in History at Oxford University and her MSc in Renaissance to Enlightenment at Edinburgh University. Having flirted briefly with the non-academic world, she quickly realised her preference for libraries and archives over PR campaigns and media events. Victoria is researching celebratory performances, religious rituals, quasi-sacred customs, and ceremonial festivities enacted during the British Civil Wars. She is the current co-editor of FORUM Journal. As well as organising the Getting Over the Fear Project, Victoria is acting as an event photographer for LLC Colloquy 2014.
Conference Chair Giulia Toto' is about to complete her PhD (Italian Studies) focussing on Italian (re)translations of Woolf’s and Joyce’s stream of consciousness novels. Outside research, she enjoys teaching her language at the University, doing yoga and knitting.
Finance Officer Having completed an Msc in Comparative Literature at the University of Edinburgh, Barbara Tesio is now continuing her academic career by pursuing a PhD in Scandinavian Studies at the same institution under the supervision of Dr. Bjarne Thorup Thomsen. Bilingual in Italian and Danish, she has always been interested in different languages and cultures. Her research concerns Karen Blixen’s works, with a particular focus on the relationship between language, displacement and identity.
Finance Officer Rachel Ashcroft is an MSc student in Comparative Literature, having completed her undergraduate degree in French and Italian last year. Her research interests currently focus on conceptions of time in the works of Michel de Montaigne and Giordano Bruno. When she isn't hard at work poring over books in her room, she enjoys running, playing the guitar and losing at pub quizzes.
Publicity/Registration Officer Emily Anderson is doing an MSc in Comparative and General Literature, and hopes to cling to academia for as long as possible. Her research focuses on the 1916 Shakespeare Tercentenary in England and Scotland. Outside the library, she enjoys rowing and writing short stories of dubious merit (not at the same time).
Programme Chair/Publicity Officer Vicki Madden is an MSc by Research student delving the depths of post-World War II American suburban gothic. When she’s not nose deep in crumbling houses and uncanny adolescents, she enjoys trying new foods, writing short stories, and watching a healthy mix of scary movies and cat videos.
Programme Chair George Barker is writing her PhD on ‘Reception of Classical Antiquity in Post-1953 Russian Poetry’, and is amazed that she still has not been forced to choose between Russian and Latin, which she studied at Worcester College, Oxford. She has a Red Lored Amazon parrot called Rosie, who upstages her frequently.
Registration Officer Hanna Lundahl is working towards an MSc by Research on the
poetry of Louis MacNeice. When her head is out of a book, she pens newsletters and makes late-night display changes for a bookshop, and walks a Spaniel called Midge in the depths of East
Lothian, where her fiancé’s parents dwell.
Catering Officer Nicole Cote is an MSc by Research student who is currently exploring Charles Dickens's novels in relation to post-modern (and dare she say digital) concepts, such as networking and crowdsourcing. Outside of research she enjoys keeping herself highly caffeinated, discovering new bakeries around Edinburgh, and Netflix binging.
Catering Officer Lizzy Robinson-Self is in the first year of her PhD in German Studies and is looking at poetry written during the Holocaust in concentration camps. After working as a barista for the past three years, she now finds it difficult to spend her days anywhere other than in coffee shops. Besides (or whilst) consuming caffeine, she also enjoys cooking and knitting.
Event Photographer Qianwei He is a second year PhD in Comparative Literature, specializing in Word and Music Study. She is currently working on ‘Music in Shen Congwen’s Works and Western Modernism’. Being a passionate researcher in Interdisciplinary Studies, she even transfers the passion into daily life as an unprofessional but confident photographer and a music lover.
Technical Support Cormac Ó Callanáin is a first year PhD candidate in the Reid School of Music. He has worked in technical theatre in Ireland and the UK for several years, and he is a member of Edinburgh-based prog folk band The Eleven O'Clock Dots.
Artwork Megan Anderson graduated from The University of Manchester with a degree in medicine and an MRes in Tissue Engineering. She is a doctor and Honorary Clinical Fellow of The University of Edinburgh. She loves drawing and painting, and living in Edinburgh provides fantastic inspiration. She won a prize for her prosection sketches in 2013.