I'm the strand Leader for Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences (SHAPE)

One-to-one meetings: in person at FW120 or online: email isabelle.parkinson@rhul.ac.uk

I have taught courses in language, literature and culture at post-16 and undergraduate level for over 25 years, including at Queen Mary University, at several London sixth form colleges, and at an international school in India. I am committed to student-centered learning and to a holistic approach that values mental health and neurodiversity.

As a scholar, I research and write about early-twentieth century literature, democracy and education. I have worked extensively on the American avant-garde writer Gertrude Stein (the subject of my PhD and recent book) and the world of radical artists and writers she joined when she moved to Paris in 1903. She and her friends and acquaintances, taking advantage of the freedom Paris offered, challenged cultural and social norms in their creative work and in their ways of life. Sometimes their experiments were admirable, but sometimes they were very problematic, and this is the tricky ground my research explores. I am currently working on a new project titled ‘The Child at the Centre: Modernism and Progressive Education’, which is about the relationships between progressive education and late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century politics, literature and visual art.