Postgraduate Researchers
Dr Melanie Khuddro (from March 2023)|melanie.khuddro@pgr.reading.ac.uk
‘Ten thousand Esthers and Miriams by the million’: The dissemination of the Christian Science faith, 1885-1933
Supervision:
- Dr Jacqui Turner
- Professor Matt Worley
My thesis tackles questions relating to Christian Science which is explored as the first and largest female-founded denominational faith within the American New Religious Movement. It positions the institutor, Mary Baker Eddy, as an essential feature of the religion though the thesis aims to divorce Eddy as an individual from Christian Science. Themes of female authority, leadership and autonomy serve the purpose of indicating the utility of Christian Science as a catalyst to enable women in the context of physical and intellectual masculine spaces. The research also discusses the profound effect of Christian Science on elite circles of women through the establishment of the London branch Ninth Church which had a disproportionate number of politically and socially influential women. The overall objective of my thesis is to demonstrate a consistency in the feminist output of Christian Science that has thus far been the topic of controversy in academic literature.
Fiona Lane|f.h.lane@pgr.reading.ac.uk
Municipal Rent Strikes in England in 1939: The Significance of Women’s Co-operative Action
Supervision:
- Dr Jacqui Turner
- Professor Matt Worley
The year 1939 witnessed a rash of rent strikes, from tenants in the East End of London who refused to pay their private property owners, to mortgage strikers who defaulted on payment to their building societies because of substandard construction of new houses, to municipal tenants on corporation housing estates who protested rent rebate schemes or rent increases. There have been very few studies of municipal rent strikes in 1939 and most have concentrated on the role of the CPGB. My thesis examines the actions of the female participants, how they were treated and regarded by the authorities and contemporaries, and what this demonstrated about their position in society.
Abbie Tibbott|a.f.tibbott@pgr.reading.ac.uk
Conservatism, Citizenship and Questions of Enfranchisement in 1920s Britain
Supervision:
- Dr Jacqui Turner
- Professor Matthew Worley
My research investigates actions taken by the 1924 Conservative Cabinet regarding women and the unemployed. By making extensive use of historic Cabinet Papers, I am analysing attempts made by the Cabinet in the 1920s to disenfranchise those in receipt of Poor Law relief, as well as investigating wider attitudes towards citizenship in the interwar period. The post-war ideology of Conservatism focused on nationalism, patriotism and individualism, leading to questions from those in the highest circles of government as to who ‘deserved’ to participate in the democratic process through casting a vote at general elections.
Find out more about Abbie and her research at https://www.reading.ac.uk/history/stories/abbie-tibbott
Amanda Ariss
The uses of imperialism in feminist and suffrage politics in the UK from 1885-1918
Supervision:
- Dr Jacqui Turner (University of Reading)
- Professor Sumita Mukherjee (University of Bristol)
- Funded by AHRC SWWDTP
The principal research question concerns how popular memory, public histories and suffrage campaigners’ self-memorialisation have addressed the complex relationships between feminism, suffragism, race and imperialism in the UK in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This research should shed fresh light on how academic and public histories of race, empire and gender influence one another. At a time when so-called ‘culture wars’ form a significant part of political discourse, this is an important question.
