Dr. Kaley Kramer BA (Hons), MA, PhD, FEA

Deputy Head of English/Principal Lecturer

Summary

My research focuses on questions of identity, affiliation, and belonging in eighteenth-century literature. I am particularly interested in Gothic literature and culture, both as part of and beyond the eighteenth century.

I studied at Queen's University (Kingston, Ontario) and the University of Windsor (Ontario) before my PhD at the University of Leeds.

About

I am interested in a wide range of literary styles and periods, and have taught across the curriculum in undergraduate Literature programmes. I am particularly interested in teaching beyond the seminar 'room' and have designed and led modules that engage with archive collections, museums, and different environments to foreground the vibrancy and ongoing debate that exists between 'historical' literature and the present.

My research is motivated by questions of political belonging and the ways in which narratives reinforce, justify, and normalise power structures and relations. I am particularly interested in the literary representation of Catholicism in the long eighteenth-century, the figuration of 'Canada' before and after 1763, and the representation of 'citizenship' at the end of the eighteenth century.

In all of these, I am drawn to the ways in which Britain conceived of itself as a 'nation' and how narratives were mobilised throughout the century to explain the present and guarantee the future. I welcome proposals for PhD projects on British literature and culture in the eighteenth century, particularly women's writing, historiography, the Gothic, and genre more broadly.

At Hallam, I am the Deputy Head of English and responsible for ensuring that our courses reflect the astonishing range and dynamism of futures that emerge from the study of literature.

Publications

Key Publications

Kramer, K. (2023). Like Nobody Else: Women and Independence in the Novels of Charlotte Smith and Mary Wollstonecraft. In Carroll, R., & Tobin, F. (Eds.) Routledge Companion to Literature and Feminism. Routledge

Kramer, K., & Griffin, S. (2022). Printed by Alice Broade: the career of York's first female printer, 1661-1680. In Kramer, K., Stenner, R., & Smith, A.J. (Eds.) Print Culture, Agency, and Regionality in the Hand Press Period. (pp. 1661-1680). London: Palgrave Macmillan: http://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-88055-2_2

Kramer, K. (2022). Forms and Feelings in the Genre. In Bloom, C. (Ed.) The Palgrave Handbook of Gothic Origins. (pp. 155-175). Palgrave Macmillan: http://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-84562-9_8

Evans, A.-.M., & Kramer, K. (Eds.). (2021). Time, the City, and the Literary Imagination. Springer International Publishing. http://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-55961-8

Kramer, K. (2016). Property, loss, and mourning in Sophia Lee's 'The Recess'. In Chappell, J.A., & Stone Stanton, K. (Eds.) Spectacle, sex, and property in Eighteenth-Century literature and culture. New York: AMS Press

Kramer, K. (2015). Rethinking Surrender: Elizabeth Inchbald and the "Catholic Novel". In Barnard, T. (Ed.) British Women and the Intellectual World in the Long Eighteenth Century. (pp. 87-106). Abingdon: Ashgate/Routledge: https://www.routledge.com/British-Women-and-the-Intellectual-World-in-the-Long-Eighteenth-Century/Barnard/p/book/9781472437457

Kramer, K. (2014). Haunting History: Women, Catholicism, and the Writing of National History in Sophia Lee's 'The Recess'. In Chappell, J., & Kramer, K. (Eds.) Women during the English Reformations: negotiating gender and religious identity. (pp. 129-144). New York: Palgrave: http://doi.org/10.1057/9781137465672

Journal articles

Kramer, K. (2012). The Limits of Genre: Women and 'History' in Frances Sheridan's The Memoirs of Miss Sidney Bidulph and Elizabeth Griffith's The History of Lady Barton. ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640-1830, 2 (1), 4. http://doi.org/10.5038/2157-7129.2.1.3

Kramer, K. (2009). Women and Property in the Romantic Period: gendered property and generic belonging in Charlotte Smith and Mary Wollstonecraft. Literature Compass, 6 (6), 1145-1158. http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1741-4113.2009.00658.x

Conference papers

Kramer, K. (2003). Madmen in the Middle: folklore and science in Bram Stoker's Dracula. Victorian Gothic, 6.

Book chapters

Kramer, K. (2022). The Butler's Diary. In Cambridge Guide to the Eighteenth-Century Novel. Cambridge University Press

Kramer, K. (2022). Anecdotes of a Convent. In London, A. (Ed.) Cambridge Guide to the Eighteenth-Century Novel. Cambridge University Press

Kramer, K. (2022). The Weird Sisters. In London, A. (Ed.) Cambridge Guide to the Eighteenth-Century Novel. Cambridge University Press

Kramer, K. (2021). Forms and Feeling in the Genre. In The Palgrave Handbook of Gothic Origins. (pp. 155-175). Springer International Publishing: http://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-84562-9_8

Kramer, K. (2021). The Curse of Sentiment. In London, A. (Ed.) Cambridge Guide to the Eighteenth-Century Novel. Cambridge University Press

Kramer, K. (2021). Waldeck Abbey. In London, A. (Ed.) Cambridge Guide to the Eighteenth-Century Novel. Cambridge University Press

Kramer, K. (2017). "How do you like my darkness now?": women, violence, and the good "bad girl" in 'Buffy, the Vampire Slayer. In Young, M., & Chappell, J.A. (Eds.) Bad Girls and Transgressive Women in Popular Television, Fiction, and Film. (pp. 15-31). New York and London: Palgrave Macmillan: http://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-47259-1

Kramer, K. (2015). Catholicism. In Day, G., & Lynch, J. (Eds.) The Encyclopaedia of British Literature, 1660-1789. Wiley-Blackwell

Kramer, K. (2009). Timeline. In Day, G., & Keegan, B. (Eds.) Eighteenth-Century Literature Handbook. (pp. 16-30). Continuum

Books

Kramer, K., Stenner, R., & Adam James, S. (Eds.). (2023). The people of print: seventeenth-century England. Cambridge University Press (Elements in Publishing and Book Culture). https://www.cambridge.org/core/elements/abs/people-of-print/B15C68541ACA04B69950850175B69DB9

Stenner, R., Kramer, K., & Smith, A.J. (Eds.). (2022). Print Culture, Agency, and Regionality in the Hand Press Period. Springer International Publishing. http://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-88055-2

Chappell, J., & Kramer, K. (Eds.). (2014). Women During the English Reformations: negotiating gender and religious identity. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. https://www.palgrave.com/gb/book/9781137474735#aboutBook

Presentations

Kramer, K. (2019). Vanished Territory: deadciv ruins and language in post-apocalyptic narratives. Presented at: Leeds Beckett University, School of Cultural Studies research series, LBU, Leeds, UK

Kramer, K. (2015). "The land God gave to Cain": Gothic Canada in the British Imagination. Presented at: International Gothic Association Biannual conference, Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, BC, Canada

Kramer, K. (2013). "How do you like my darkness now?": Standing in the Shadows of Buffy. Presented at: SCMLA annual conference, New Orleans, LA, USA

Kramer, K. (2012). Rethinking Surrender: Catholicism, history, and the Protestant future in Elizabeth Inchbald's A Simple Story. Presented at: University of Plymouth - English Research Series, Plymouth, UK

Kramer, K. (2011). ‘Necro politics, history, and undead citizens in Robert Kirkman’s The Walking Dead’. Presented at: International Gothic Association Biannual conference, Heidelburg, Germany

Kaley Kramer