Jay Kerslake

Profile

I am a doctoral student in the School of English. My PhD thesis examines the literary content of the Woman Worker, an early twentieth century women’s trade union magazine. I am interested in the ways texts interact with and try to affect change. My research focuses on how the Woman Worker uses literary texts within the wider magazine to promote women’s labour organisation and political action in the years running up to and immediately following the Representation of the People Act 1918. Focussing on the intersections of class and gender, I consider how the magazine and its literature negotiated various women’s and labour movements of early twentieth century and attempted to legitimise itself through print culture. I contextualise this within the broader unrest that characterised the early twentieth century United Kingdom, the industrial women’s movement, and contemporaneous debates about political uses and ethics of literature.

Qualifications

• MA English Literature (distinction), University of Leeds, 2023.
• BA English Literature (first class), University of Leeds, 2022.