Staff profile

I joined the Department of English at Durham in 2018, having previously worked as a Teaching Fellow at Newcastle University. My research and teaching interests span from the late nineteenth century to the present day, and focus on the intersections of space, mobility, embodiment, and gender in literature and culture. 

My monograph, Mobility and the Hotel in Modern Literature: Passing Through, was published with Palgrave in 2019, and considers the complex ways in which the hotel functions to express the shifting experiences of modernity in the works of such authors as Arnold Bennett, H.G. Wells, Dorothy Richardson, Virginia Woolf, and Elizabeth Bowen. The book contributes to the critical debates on nineteenth- and twentieth-century literature concerning space, movement, and mobility, arguing that the hotel reconfigures boundaries of modernist, middlebrow, and popular fiction. Drawing on a range of interdisciplinary theoretical and analytical perspectives, my book provides a critical and cultural history of the hotel in British literature, charting its changing nature and usage from the mid-nineteenth century up until the interwar period.

My current research focuses on ecocritical approaches to literature and landscape, and in particular on plants in the work of Elizabeth Bowen. 

In 2026/27, I am teaching on the following modules:

ENGL2081: Literature of the Modern Period 

I convene this second-year lecture module which introduces students to the literature, thought and culture of the modern period.

ENGL2821: Hotel Stories 

I convene this second-year special topic module on which we explore the space of the hotel in all its complexities across modern and contemporary literature. 

ENGL1081: Approaches to Literary Studies

I lead seminars and lecture on this first-year lecture module which introduces students to the history of and theory behind Literary Studies, and which helps them to develop important practical skills.

I also supervise undergraduate dissertation students and postgraduate students working on modern and contemporary literature. I welcome PhD applications in the areas of modern literature, gender and feminist theory, women's writing, travel writing, ecocriticism, and theories of embodiment and space. 

For 2026/27, my office hours will take place on Thursdays 2pm-3pm, either online via Teams (drop-in) or in-person by appointment.

Authored book

• Mobility and the Hotel in Modern Literature: Passing Through
  
  Short, E. (2019). Mobility and the Hotel in Modern Literature: Passing Through. Palgrave Macmillan.

Chapter in book

• 'The hotel story he made up': Hotel Life, Death, and Work in James Joyce's Ulysses
  
  Short, E. (2023). ’The hotel story he made up’: Hotel Life, Death, and Work in James Joyce’s Ulysses. In A. Despotopoulou, V. Kolocotroni, & E. Mitsi (Eds.), Hotel Modernisms. Routledge.
• ‘One is Somehow Suspended’: Elizabeth Bowen, Katherine Mansfield, and the Spaces in Between
  
  Short, E. (2019). ‘One is Somehow Suspended’: Elizabeth Bowen, Katherine Mansfield, and the Spaces in Between. In J. Gildersleeve & P. Smith (Eds.), Elizabeth Bowen: Theory, Thought and Things. Edinburgh University Press.
• ‘“Always coming and going”: The In-Between Spaces of Elizabeth Bowen’s Early Novels’
  
  Short, E. (2013). ‘“Always coming and going”: The In-Between Spaces of Elizabeth Bowen’s Early Novels’. In T. Gómez Reus & T. Gifford (Eds.), Women in Transit through Literary Liminal Spaces. Palgrave. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137330475
• ‘Making Up, or Making Over: Reconstructing the Modern Female Author’
  
  Short, E. (2012). ‘Making Up, or Making Over: Reconstructing the Modern Female Author’. In K. Cooper & E. Short (Eds.), The Female Figure in Contemporary Historical Fiction. Palgrave.

Edited book

• Children's Literature & Culture of the First World War
  
  Johnston, R. R., Paul, L., & Short, E. (Eds.). (2019). Children’s Literature & Culture of the First World War. Routledge.
• The Female Figure in Contemporary Historical Fiction
  
  Cooper, K., & Short, E. (Eds.). (2012). The Female Figure in Contemporary Historical Fiction. Palgrave. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137283382

Journal Article

• "Those Eyes Kohl Blackened Enflame": Re-reading the Feminine in Gertrude Bell's Early Travel Writing
  
  Short, E. (2015). "Those Eyes Kohl Blackened Enflame": Re-reading the Feminine in Gertrude Bell’s Early Travel Writing. Journeys: The International Journal of Travel and Travel Writing, 16(1), 8-28. https://doi.org/10.3167/jys.2015.160102