Professor Susan Watkins

Susan Watkins is Professor of Women's Writing in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences. She is an expert in contemporary women's writing and feminist theory, with particular research interests in dystopia, apocalyptic fiction, ageing and the future.

Susan's most recent book is about contemporary women’s post-apocalyptic writing. As well as her interests in Doris Lessing, Margaret Atwood, and contemporary women's dystopian and apocalyptic fiction, Susan is currently working on research projects on ageing and the future and ageing and the cultural industries. She welcomes proposals from prospective PhD students in these areas and in the broader field of women's fiction and feminist theory.

Susan is a founder member and former Chair of the Contemporary Women's Writing Association and previously a Co-Editor of the Journal of Commonwealth Literature. She was Director of the university's Centre for Culture and the Arts for 10 years.

Susan's main teaching at undergraduate level includes modules on Twentieth-Century Literature: Alienation and Dystopia (level 5) and Twentieth-Century Women Novelists: Feminist Theory into Practice (level 6). At MA level she teaches the modules Literature in Practice and Contemporary Apocalyptic Fictions. 

Susan's main teaching interests are in contemporary women's fiction and feminist theory. On the BA (Hons) English Literature programme she teaches Twentieth-Century Literature: Alienation and Dystopia (Level 5) and Twentieth-Century Women Novelists: Genre and Gender (Level 6 option). On the MA English: Contemporary Literature pathway, she contributes to the Creative Criticism module, leads the Literature in Practice module and teaches a specialist module on Apocalyptic Fictions.