Mrs Lauren Faro

I am a fully-funded Reid Scholar in the School of Modern Languages, Literatures and Cultures. I am currently in the third year of a full-time PhD in Comparative Literature under the supervision of Dr Ruth Hemus.

I completed a BA in European Literature and Cultural Studies (First Class) at Royal Holloway in 2012, and was awarded the Martin Holloway prize for 'the best student in the Arts and Social Sciences Faculty, with regard to academic and intellectual distinction'. On reciept of a full fee waiver award I stayed at Royal Holloway to complete a Masters by Research in Comparative Literature, for which I was awarded a Distinction. 

My research considers the literary contributions of women active within the artistic circles of the European Avant-Garde, with an emphasis on questions of literary form and the challenges of reading avant-garde poetry.

My thesis compares the experimental writing of avant-garde women across a number of European movements, including Expressionism, Vorticism, Dada, Futurism, and Surrealism, with a focus on formal concerns and close analytical readings of poetry and short prose texts. 

My research interests include: women's writing, the historical Avant-Garde, gender studies, feminist theory, poetry and poetic form, reader response theory, experimental literature, Modernism and modernist literary practices. 

• 1st year: Acadmic Skills for Students of Modern Languages [2014/15]
• 1st year: Liberal Arts I: Cultural Encounters (LA1000: Liberal Arts Degree Core Course) [2015/16]
• 2nd Year: Gender and Clothing in Twentieth-Century Literature and Culture (ML2403) [2013/14, 2014/15, 2015/16, 2016/17]
• 2nd year: Critical and Comparative Approaches (ML2207) [2016/17]
• Final year: From Aestheticism to the Avant-Garde (ML3202) [2015/16]

• Member of the Postgraduate Events Committee, School of Modern Languages, Literatures & Cultures, Royal Holloway [September 2012 - September 2015].

• Organiser of the London Postgraduate French Conference 2015.