Joanna Turner

Pronouns: She/her
  • Doctoral Researcher

Joanna is an alumna of the Open University, graduating with a BA in English Literature with First Class Honours. She obtained distinctions for her final-year modules, writing on ‘Nationhood and Narratives of Ageing Men in Shakespeare’s Cymbeline, and The Sonnets’ and ‘The Consequence of “Nearness” in Marriage in Brontë’s Jane Eyre and Chopin’s The Awakening’.

Pursuing her interest in nineteenth-century literature and culture, Joanna obtained an interdisciplinary MA in Victorian Studies from the University of Leicester. Her Masters dissertation was concerned with ‘Representations of Children in the Selected Works of Marie Corelli’; a project that inspired her PhD studies.

Joanna is in receipt of a Doctoral College Fee Studentship from º¬Ðß²ÝÊÓƵ. Since commencing her studies in 2018, she has shared her research at conferences both within and outside º¬Ðß²ÝÊÓƵ and is a member of º¬Ðß²ÝÊÓƵ’s research group ‘Cultural Currents 1870-1930’. Joanna has taught on the first-year undergraduate module ‘Theory Matters: Critiquing Inequalities’ and has delivered a recurring guest-lecture and workshop for the third-year module ‘Radicals and Reactionaries: Writing Women in the 1890s’ on her specialism of Marie Corelli.

Joanna is an editorial assistant for Victoriographies: A Journal of Nineteenth-Century Writing, 1790–1914.

Paternal Influence, Self-Construction, and Literary Lineage: Reimagining Marie Corelli

Joanna’s research project is concerned with how fin-de-siècle popular fiction interprets earlier nineteenth-century literary traditions. Her focus is fatherhood within the life and work of Marie Corelli (1855-1924). Joanna is exploring the influence of Dickens on Corelli, with her methodology intertwining psychoanalytic and nostalgia theories

Joanna is additionally using genealogical research to investigate Marie Corelli’s early life.

Professional Memberships:

  • British Association of Victorian Studies (BAVS)
  • Victorian Popular Fiction Association (VPFA)
  • Research Society for Victorian Periodicals (RSVP)
  • Society of Genealogists (SOG)

Research Group  Cultural Currents

Publications

Marie Corelli (Brighton: Edward Everett Root) Forthcoming 2024. See http://www.eerpublishing.com/hatter---ifill-women-writers.html

‘Some Corrections to the Periodical Publishing History of Marie Corelli (1854– 1924)’, 2023, in Notes and Queries, Oxford University Press, ISSN: 1471-6941 (online). DOI: http://doi.org/10.1093/notesj/gjad075

 ‘Making a Name for Herself: Marie Corelli’s Self-Guided Literary Apprenticeship Via the Periodical Press’, 2023, in Victorian Periodicals Review, 56:1. 110-132. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/vpr.2023.a905142

“‘The most accomplished liar in literature’? Uncovering Marie Corelli’s Hidden Early Life”, 2023, in Victorian Popular Fictions, 5.1: 21-36. ISSN: 2632-4253 (online) DOI: https://doi.org/10.46911/CWXJ9793

‘A Romance of Two Worlds (Corelli, Marie)’, 2021, in The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Victorian Women's Writing ed. by Lesa Scholl (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan). DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-02721-6_365-1

‘The Sorrows of Satan (Corelli, Marie)’, 2021, in The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Victorian Women's Writing ed. by Lesa Scholl. (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan). DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-02721-6_348-1

‘Marie Corelli in Stratford-Upon-Avon: A Research Roadtrip’, 2019, in The Victorianist: BAVS Postgraduates. Available here.

Conference Papers

‘The Fangirl, The Fake Countess, and Communal Narcissism: Marie Corelli’s Use of Ouida’, Ouida: High Priestess of the Impossible (VPFA Study Day online, November 2023) Programme available here.

‘“If the courses be departed from, the ends will change”: Marie Corelli and an Edwardian Refashioning of A Christmas Carol’. (Online: The 26th Annual Dickens Society Symposium, July 12-14, 2021 – rescheduled from London:             July 2020). Original Programme available here.

““Let me behold what I shall be, in days to come!”: The Afterlife of Ebenezer Scrooge in Marie Corelli’s The Strange Visitation’ given at The Impact of Dickens: An International Online Conference. (University of Buckingham, September 2020). Programme available here.

‘Queens of Their Realms: The Monarch and the Bestseller’ given at the London Nineteenth-Century Studies Seminar Graduate Conference. (Queen Mary University, January 2020). Programme available here.

‘Queens of Their Realms: The Monarch and the Bestseller’ given at Queen Victoria & George Eliot: Lives and Afterlives 1819-2019. (º¬Ðß²ÝÊÓƵ, May 2019). CFP available here.

Invited Talks and Outreach

‘Interview with a Guest: Joanna Turner’ International Centre for Victorian Women Writers Newsletter (January 2023)

‘Marie Corelli’s My Wonderful Wife’ invited talk for VPFA 3rd Sex Reading Group (September 2021)

‘Marie Corelli in Biography’ invited talk for º¬Ðß²ÝÊÓƵ Lives and Afterlives Reading Group (April 2021)

‘Interview with Jo Turner’ with Victorian Scribblers (February 2020)

Other Papers

‘Digital Scholarship Resources and Organisation’, º¬Ðß²ÝÊÓƵ Postgraduate Research Forum (November 2022)

‘“As Great an Orator as she is a Writer”: Marie Corelli’s First After-Dinner Speech’, º¬Ðß²ÝÊÓƵ English Departmental Research Day (July 2022)

‘Anxieties of Influence: Reading Dickens in the Selected Works of Marie Corelli’ poster presentation, º¬Ðß²ÝÊÓƵ Research Conference (November 2019)

“Marie Corelli and the Ghosts of Christmas Past’, º¬Ðß²ÝÊÓƵ School of Arts, English, and Drama Doctoral Colloquium (January 2019), also delivered at Cultural Currents Research Group (February 2019)