Ruth Livesey joined the department in 2002 from a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship at Birkbeck College. She studied for a BA in English at Oxford and then moved into Women's Studies at Warwick University for Masters and Ph.D. degrees. Ruth continues to enjoy research and teaching that is grounded in the close study of texts but which reaches out to larger political and social questions.

From October 2011 to January 2013 Ruth is pursuing research on her current project, 'Writing the Stagecoach Nation, 1780-1870' for which she has been awarded a Leverhulme Research Fellowship. She continues to supervise PhD students in a variety of fields relating to nineteenth-century literature, culture, and political thought during this time and will be happy to respond to enquries from prospective graduate students. For a good insight into the lively field of Victorian Studies at the moment, take a look at the Journal of Victorian Culture online blog with free downloads from the Journal itself, reviews, and comment.

Ruth is (with Helen Rogers, Joseph Bristow, and Thomas Dixon) an Editor of the Journal of Victorian Culture|, on the editorial board of 19: Interdisciplinary Studies in the Long Nineteenth Century| and she is also on the advisory board of Nineteenth-Century Gender Studies|. She is an external member of the Centre for Nineteenth Century Studies, Birkbeck, University of London and on the steering group of the London Nineteenth-Century Studies Seminar at the Institute of English Studies. Ruth was acting Director of the Centre for Victorian Studies at Royal Holloway for several years and has co-organised conferences and symposia under its auspices. Click the link for information about past and current events in the Centre for Victorian Studies. From 2012 Ruth will serve as a member of the AHRC peer review college.