Dr Nicola Abram

Email:
n.l.abram@reading.ac.uk
Phone:
+44 (0) 118 378 6749
Job title:
Associate Professor

Office

Building location

Edith Morley

Areas of interest

I'm interested in contemporary literature: what it says about the world around us, and how it helps us to imagine and enact social justice, especially racial andЬ§gender justice. My research focuses on postcolonial and feminist writings, from 1980 onwards.

My first book, (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020) won the 2021 and the 91ЕМКН . Drawing on unpublished materials held in archives of various kinds т from cultural institutions like the Victoria and Albert Museum to individualsт personal papers т I collate a rich, interconnected and, where necessary, corrective history of Black women in British theatre, from the 1980s to the early 2000s. The book profiles five theatre companies and artists: Theatre of Black Women, Munirah Theatre Company, Black Mime Theatre Womenтs Troop, Zindika, and SuAndi. As part of thisЬ§projectЬ§I had theЬ§pleasure of interviewing many pioneering playwrights and practitioners, including the Booker Prize-winningЬ§novelist Bernardine Evaristo.Ь§

In 2025 I ran the first academic on Evaristoтs writing, featuring 15 speakers across two days, as well as the sold-out public event тAn Evening with Bernardine Evaristoт. I am now editing the first collection of essays exploring Evaristoтs work.

I have also published articles and book chapters on the Black British writers debbie tucker green, Winsome Pinnock, and Helen Oyeyemi, and on Black and Asian British arts collectives and anthologies.

Recently, I have begun a research project investigating literary representations of тmatrescenceт,Ь§ the transition to motherhood. As part of this I am working in partnership with the local community group to run writing for wellbeing workshops for new mums. We ran a series of six workshops in 2024, and produced an anthology of participantsт work, titled Becoming: An Anthology of Creative Motherhood, launched at South Street Arts Centre. In 2026 we are running workshops at , drawing on artworks and artefacts from the Museum collections to prompt participantsт reflections on and writing about motherhood.

Postgraduate supervision

I am currently supervising one PhD candidate, and have seen two successfully through to graduation.Ь§ I have supervised PhD research spanning Afrofuturism, British Muslim women's writing, and Sri Lankan diasporic writing, and examined several PhDs on Black British writing and theatre.Ь§

I welcome contact from prospective PhD applicants with proposals relating to contemporary postcolonial, feminist, and/or Black British womenтs writing, especially archival and/or publicly engaged research.

Teaching

Within the Department of English Literature I convene the following modules:

Prose: Writing Identities (Part 1)
Global Literatures: Translation as Theme and Theory (Part 3)
Modern Literary Feminisms: Theories, Praxis, Texts (MA)

I also give lectures and/or lead seminars on other undergraduate modules, including тTheories and Practice of Writingт (Part 1), тContemporary Fictionт (Part 2), and тBritish Black and Asian Voicesт (Part 3), and on the MA modules тModern and Contemporary Literatureт and тContemporary Literature and Ethnicityт.

I became a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy in 2020. In 2019/20 I received the University Teaching Fellowship, a prestigious award recognising an individualтs teaching excellence and contribution to the development of teaching and learning within the 91ЕМКН. The UTF Panel commended my commitment to a diverse curriculum and inclusive teaching, and recognised the impact of my work across the Department and School and across the wider University and sector.

I have worked in partnership with students on a number of funded teaching projects, including a (2018/19) and a D&I-funded (2019/20). In April 2020 I won the student-nominated for Technology Enhanced Learning, for the project .

I enjoy teaching in a range of contexts. I have delivered outreach sessions for school and college students, and run training for secondary school teachers, and I have previously led a reading group in a high security women's prison.

Research centres and groups

Since 2023 I have led the 'Diversity and Inclusion' research theme in the Department of English Literature at the 91ЕМКН, which gathers staff and postgraduate researchers working across a range of historical periods and literary forms. Prior to this (2019-2023) I convened the тIdentitiesт research cluster.

From 2014-2017 I was Vice-Chair of the international and interdisciplinary (PSA), and from 2011-2014 I served as co-editor of its newsletter. I continue to enjoy active membership of the PSA and .

Selected publications

My publications include:

(2024) ттBeing / togetherт: Bernardine Evaristoтs Girl, Woman, Other and the Black British Womenтs Movementт, Contemporary Women's Writing, vol. 18

(2020) Black British Women's Theatre: Intersectionality, Archives, Aesthetics (Palgrave Macmillan)

(2020) тForging connections: anthologies, arts collectives, and the politics of inclusionт in The Cambridge History of Black and Asian British Writing, eds Susheila Nasta and Mark Stein (Cambridge University Press), pp. 403-416

(2017) 'Sensory signification in Juniper's Whitening and Victimese', in 'Telling it Slant': Critical Approaches to Helen Oyeyemi, eds Chloe Buckley and Sarah Ilott (Sussex Academic Press), pp.93-112

(2014) 'Staging the unsayable: debbie tucker green's political theatre', Journal of Contemporary Drama in English, 2.1, 113-130

(2014) 'Looking Back: Winsome Pinnock's Politics of Representation', in Modern and Contemporary Black British Theatre, eds Mary Brewer, Lynette Goddard and Deirdre Osborne (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan), pp.95-111

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PRESENTATIONS

Invited and keynote presentations include:

(2024) Keynote presentation at Recentring Form(s) in and of the Margins: The Politics of Self-Reflexivity, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium

(2016) Invited talk at Ethics, Affect, Responsibility: Global Citizenship and the Act of 91ЕМКН, British Academy/University of Bristol

(2015) Invited talk at Representing race and black Britain in theatre, film, television and digital media symposium, National Theatre, London

(2013) Invited talk at Black British Women's Writing: Where Is It Now?, an International Expert Meeting, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium

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PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT

My public engagement activities include:

(2026) Co-organiser of Maternal Mental Health and The Arts conference, with Becoming Mums.

(2021) Invited speaker at , Clapham Library, London

(2016) Co-organiser of 2nd , 91ЕМКН, with Unity Arts, Music & Multimedia

(2014) Invited speaker at public Black History Month celebration, The Globe, 91ЕМКН

(2014) Radio guest on BBC Radio Berkshire African Caribbean Community Show hosted by Jeanette Kwakye

(2012) Contributor to documentary film (Octavia Foundation/Nu Century Arts)

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Website

For fuller information on my research, public engagement, and teaching activities please visit my .

91ЕМКН