Elaine Hobby

Today, fully absorbed in running the AHRC-funded project Editing Aphra Behn in the Digital Age, Elaine can see connections across her 30 years at Loughborough and her academic career before that. Since her appointment as Lecturer in Women’s Studies in 1988, tasked then with developing the study of women’s writing at the University, the investigation of forgotten female authors has been her central interest. Elaine has taught undergraduate and Master’s modules focused on women’s writing, supervised PhD research in that area, and published a range of books and journal articles designed to encourage others to investigate this world. Along the way, Elaine was promoted to Reader in Women’s Studies in 1992, and to Professor of Seventeenth-Century Studies in 2000. As Head of the Department of English and Drama from 2006 to 2013, she also took especial delight in encouraging her colleagues to pursue their own intellectual passions, contributing to the rich environment now offered in our English and drama programmes.

Before Loughborough, Elaine was Lecturer in English and General Studies at the Cambridge College of Arts and Technology (which has since morphed into Anglia Polytechnic University), and before that was based in the USA from 1981-83 as a Harkness Fellow. Her BA (1978) and PhD (1984) are from the University of Birmingham, and her Master’s degree from Essex University (1980). Having been a Welsh child growing up in England in the 1950s and 60s, Elaine has an enduring interest in the experience of migration.

Elaine is a Fellow of the English Association, and a member of the AHRC Peer Review College.