Skip to main content

English and Creative Writing

Dr Alexandra du Plessis

Dr Alexandra du Plessis

Postdoctoral Research Associate
English and Creative Writing

Alexandra du Plessis (née Gushurst-Moore) is Research Associate of "The Art of Fiction" project, where she is investigating collaborative art making and the creative process in the context of mid to late-Victorian fantasy production.

 

She is developing two books from the research conducted towards her PhD, "The Making of Modern Fantasy in the Visual Arts of England, c. 1850-1920". The first is a thematic survey of fantasy art making in the late Victorian period, which situates an exploration of the formal elements of the fantasy mode in the context of late Victorian British artists' relationships. The second is a creative history of the development of modern fantasy between the 1830s and 1930s, written in the style of a Norse saga.

 

Her primary area of research is fantasy as a visual mode. Other research interests include modern fantasy art and literature, Pre-Raphaelite legacies, interdisciplinary literature and art studies, speculative futures, worldbuilding and worldmaking, embodied research, and art making as method.

 

Beyond her research, she has professional experience of and interest in British educational policy, the strategy and operation of HEIs, and the facilitation of inclusive and supportive research cultures.

 

Alexandra du Plessis's doctoral thesis, titled "The Making of Modern Fantasy in the Visual Arts of England, c. 1850-1920", was supervised by Professor Elizabeth Prettejohn at the University of York; she holds an MA(Hons) from the University of Edinburgh and an MSt from the University of Oxford.

View full profile