Alexander French
- Email: fscx5443@leeds.ac.uk
- Thesis title: The psychology of suffering and cruelty in the works of Patrick Hamilton
- Supervisors: Dr Tracy Hargreaves, Professor Michael G. Brennan
Profile
My doctoral research explores how British novelist and playwright Patrick Hamilton (1904-62) conveys psychological suffering and cruelty by examining transient communities, evolving gender roles, masculinity under pressure, and the malicious behaviours of ordinary citizens. Drawing on his published works and unpublished letters and manuscripts, and using psychodynamic theory as a critical frame with which to reevaluate his oeuvre, my research positions Hamilton as the missing part of a quartet of canonical English inter- and post-war writers including Graham Greene, George Orwell and Evelyn Waugh.
My research is funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, through the White Rose College of Arts and Humanities (WRoCAH).
Research interests
- British fiction of the Second World War and interwar period
- Psychoanalysis
- Representations of altered psychological states Modernism
- Critical biography
- Twentieth-century British history
Qualifications
- MA, Modern Literature (Distinction), University of Leicester
- BA, English (First Class Honours), University of Leicester