Skip to main content

Mary-Jane Holmes

Doctoral Student in Creative Writing - Mary-Jane’s thesis is entitled ‘A Girdle Round the Earth: Strategies of Resistance in Translation and the Un-silencing of the Female Voice’.

Research Project Title:

A Girdle Round the Earth. Strategies of Resistance in Translation and the Un-silencing of the Female Voice

 

Supervisors:

Dr Tara Bergin, Prof Sinead Morrissey and Dr Pauline Henry-Tierney

Contact Details:

Email: m.holmes7@newcastle.ac.uk 

 

Research Interests:

  • Poetry
  • Feminist Translation
  • Transcultural Studies
Mary-Jane Holmes

Brief Outline of Research Project:

Drawing on feminist translation theory and poetic formalism to investigate whether translation can be successful in releasing the target text from its own gendered constraints, my PhD investigates the ancient poetic form called the Muwashshaha (Arabic for ‘girdled’; plural Muwashshahat) to ask whether translation of form across languages can create a new route to understanding how gender can be voiced in poetry today. I will produce a sequence of English ‘girdle songs’ in order to enact and respond to the effects of formal transference, and a critical essay that will explore the regenerative act of performative and dialogic translation.

Research Activities:

Publications

 

Work appears in anthologies including Best Small Fictions 2014/2016/2018  and Best Microfictions 2020 and in a variety of other publications including Magma, Modern Poetry in Translation,  The Journal of Compressed Creative Arts, Tishman Review, Magma, Barren, Spelk, Cabinet of Heed, Firewords, Flashback Fiction, Mslexia, Fictive Dream, The Lonely Crowd, and Prole.

Placements and Funding
  • Northern Bridge Consortium Studentship
  • The Iland Postgraduate Research Studentship Award (Research Excellence Academy)
Awards
Conferences

AWP 2020

Research Groups:

  • Translating & Interpreting Research Group
  • Gender Research Group

Academic Background:

  • Master of Studies (Distinction) in Creative Writing at Kellogg College, Oxford
  • Bachelor of Arts with Honours in English Language and Literature, The University of Manchester

Website:

https://mary-janeholmes.com/

Back to Creative Writing Postgraduate Students