Tara Thomson
Tara Thomson

Dr Tara Thomson

Lecturer

Biography

I am a Lecturer in Cultural Studies and Programme Leader for the MA in Digital and Public Humanities at Edinburgh Napier. My research interests fall generally into modernist studies, critical theory, women’s writing, urban studies and the Digital Humanities.

I was awarded a PhD from the University of Victoria in Canada in 2014, before relocating to the UK. My doctoral thesis examined representations of women’s everyday lives in modernist British fiction, and my first monograph - titled Modernism, Feminism and Everyday Life - will be published soon by Routledge. My developing research in modernist studies focuses on the work of Scottish writers Naomi Mitchison and Christine Orr.

My research interests extend to the Digital Humanities, and I have worked on a number of Digital Humanities research projects, including 'LitLong: Edinburgh,’ a text mining and digital mapping project (litlong.org), the upcoming 'LitLong: Africa', and currently the Netherbow Literature House project with the UNESCO City of Literature Trust. In addition to UNESCO, I regularly work with the Edinburgh International Book Festival and other cultural sector organisations to engage local communities with Scotland's literary culture and history. I have published articles and book chapters on geospatial humanities, data visualisation for the humanities, and literary modernism, as well as scholarly editions of two volumes of Dorothy Richardson's Pilgrimage series for Broadview Literary Press.

Research Areas

Events

Esteem

Conference Organising Activity

  • ‘These letters weren’t meant for you’: I Love Dick and the Avant-Garde on TV
  • Roundtable: ‘We Editors’
  • Scottish Network for Modernist Studies Symposium (co-organiser)
  • Lit Long: Locating Edinburgh Modernism
  • "I am a camera": The Politicisation of Aesthetics in Christopher Isherwood's Goodbye to Berlin
  • Editing Modernism/Modernist Editing (organiser)
  • Seminar: Modernism in Scotland (organiser and chair)
  • Scotland's 'puir auld mither': Muir's bored housewives and Mitchison's cosmopolitan activists

 

External Examining/Validations

  • External examiner: Modernism course - Scottish Universities International Summer School

 

Fellowships and Awards

  • Erasmus+ Staff Mobility Grant
  • Co-Investigator - Words on the Street: the Uses of a Digital Literary Landscape
  • British Library Lab Award: Research Award runner-up
  • Cultural Engagement Research Fellowship: Lit Long: Edinburgh
  • AHRC Research Fellowship: Palimpsest: Literary Edinburgh project

 

Invited Speaker

  • (Co-)Editing Dorothy Richardson
  • Edinburgh International Book Festival - Directors' Highlights event for Patrons of the Book Festival
  • Yun Posun Memorial Symposium

 

Media Activity

  • 'Edinburgh’s literary history mapped at the click of a button'

 

Membership of Professional Body

  • Higher Education Academy Fellow

 

Date


19 results

Introduction: Palgrave Handbook of Digital and Public Humanities

Book Chapter
Schwan, A., & Thomson, T. (2022)
Introduction: Palgrave Handbook of Digital and Public Humanities. In A. Schwan, & T. Thomson (Eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Digital and Public Humanities (1-8). Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-11886-9_1
This chapter introduces some key concepts and critical debates in digital and public humanities. Emphasis is placed on the multiplicity of “publics” that the collection engage...

The Palgrave Handbook of Digital and Public Humanities

Book
Schwan, A., & Thomson, T. (Eds.)
(2022). The Palgrave Handbook of Digital and Public Humanities. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-11886-9
This collection seeks to bring together some of the most recent international scholarship and developments in the interdisciplinary fields of digital and public humanities. Al...

Working with Incarcerated Communities: Representing Women in Prison on Screen

Book Chapter
Gray, P., & Schwan, A. (2022)
Working with Incarcerated Communities: Representing Women in Prison on Screen. In A. Schwan, & T. Thomson (Eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Digital and Public Humanities (105-128). Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-11886-9_7
This chapter considers public arts and humanities scholarship and practice in the context of penal institutions, with a focus on women’s prisons and film-making. It argues for...

Annotating the Everyday in a Modernist Scholarly Edition

Journal Article
Thomson, T. (2020)
Annotating the Everyday in a Modernist Scholarly Edition. Modernist Cultures, 15(1), 92-109. https://doi.org/10.3366/mod.2020.0281
This article interrogates current approaches to the annotation of scholarly editions in order to reframe annotation practice within an emerging ‘new modernist editing’. Using ...

'Enlightenment in a Smart City: Edinburgh's Civic Development, 1660–1750' by Murray Pittock (review)

Journal Article
Thomson, T. (2019)
'Enlightenment in a Smart City: Edinburgh's Civic Development, 1660–1750' by Murray Pittock (review). Scottish Literary Review, 11(2), 212-214

Modernist Scottish Women Writers [Website]

Digital Artefact
Lyall, S., Simpson, K., & Thompson, T. (2019)
Modernist Scottish Women Writers [Website]. [Website]

“Multiplicity Embarasses the Eye”: The Digital Mapping of Literary Edinburgh

Book
Thomson, T., Loxley, J., Alex, B., Grover, C., Hinrichs, U., Harris-Birtill, D., …Oberlander, J. (2018)
“Multiplicity Embarasses the Eye”: The Digital Mapping of Literary Edinburgh. In I. Gregory, D. DeBats, & D. Lafreniere (Eds.), The Routledge Companion to Spatial HistoryLondon, UK: Taylor & Francis (Routledge
No abstract available.

Metropolis

Book
Thomson, T. (2017)
Metropolis. In V. Koloctroni, & O. Taxidou (Eds.), The Edinburgh Dictionary of ModernismEdinburgh, Scotland: Edinburgh University Press
Encyclopedia entry

Spleen

Book
Thomson, T. (2017)
Spleen. In V. Koloctroni, & O. Taxidou (Eds.), The Edinburgh Dictionary of ModernismEdinburgh, Scotland: Edinburgh University Press
Encyclopedia entry.

The Crowd

Book
Thomson, T. (2017)
The Crowd. In V. Koloctroni, & O. Taxidou (Eds.), The Edinburgh Dictionary of ModernismEdinburgh, Scotland: Edinburgh University Press
Encyclopedia entry

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