Dr Kathryn Walchester
Humanities and Social Science
Faculty of Arts Professional and Social Studies
Email: K.A.Walchester@ljmu.ac.uk
Telephone: 0151 904 1483
I am a Reader in English Literature and Subject Leader for English. I have taught at LJMU since 2002, having previously taught at Keele University. My research interests are in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century travel, mountaineering literature, and northern travel. I am currently working on a monograph about ‘travelling gardens’, considering the representation of horticulture and mobility in eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century writing about European travels. I am also co-editing a special edition of Studies in Travel Writing on ‘Vertical travel’ and an anthology on microtravel with colleagues Professor Charles Forsdick (University of Liverpool) and Dr. Zoe Kinsley (Liverpool Hope University). In my role as co-Director of the Research Institute of Literature and Cultural History, I am leading a project analysing community engagement with literary and cultural activities across the Liverpool City Region. I have been on the National Executive of University English since 2018 and have acted as external examiner at Nottingham Trent University and University of Chester.
I teach across both the undergraduate and postgraduate English Literature programmes, including ‘Reading English’ at Level 4, ‘English in the Workplace’ at Level 5, and ‘Space and Place; Travel Writing at Home and Abroad’ at Level 6. On the MA English Literature, I teach on the ‘Place’ and ‘Mobilities’ modules, and on ‘Public Culture and Collaborative Practice’. I supervise undergraduate and postgraduate dissertations and am currently on the supervisory teams for three PhD studies: ‘How Does the Space Create the Text?: An Exploration of the Impact of Different Physical and Geographical Spaces on Each Stage of the Writing Process’; ‘Becoming a Domestic Science Teacher: Students at F.L. Calder's School for Teacher Training, 1915-1925’; and a project editing the letters of Susannah Darwin.
Books (authored)
Forsdick C, Kinsley Z, Walchester K. 2023. Microtravel Confinement, Deceleration, Microspection Anthem Studies in Travel 9781839986581
Walchester K. 2019. Travelling Servants; Mobility and Employment in British Travel Writing 1750-1850 Routledge. London and New York 9780367265472 Publisher Url
Forsdick C, Kinsley Z, Walchester K. 2019. Keywords for Travel Writing Studies Forsdick C, Kinsley Z, Walchester K. Anthem. London 978-1-78308-922-2
Walchester KA. 2014. Gamle Norge and Nineteenth-Century British Women Travellers in Norway Anthem Press 978-1783083657
Walchester K. 2007. Our Own Fair Italy Peter Lang Pub Inc 9783039110285
Journal article
Walchester KA. 2023. The Picturesque and the Beastly: Wales and the Absence of Welsh in the journals of Lady’s Companions Eliza and Millicent Bant (1806, 1808) Modern Languages Open, 1 :1-10 DOI Publisher Url Public Url
Walchester K. 2021. “Many and Dreadful Disasters” Journeys, 22 :21-38 DOI Publisher Url Public Url
Walchester K. 2021. Working, travelling, and identity: J.B. Priestley’s English Journey (1934) Studies in Travel Writing, 24 :157-169 DOI Publisher Url Public Url
Walchester K. 2018. Alpine guides, gender, and British climbers, 1859-85: The boundaries of female propriety in the British periodical press Victorian Periodicals Review, 51 :521-538 DOI Publisher Url Public Url
Walchester K. 2018. “A fisherman landing an unwieldy salmon”; The Alpine Guide and Female Mountaineer Nineteenth-Century Contexts, :1-16 DOI Publisher Url Public Url
Walchester KA. 2017. The Servant as Narrative Vehicle in Nineteenth-Century Travel Texts about Norway and Iceland Studies in Travel Writing, 21 :156-172 DOI Publisher Url Public Url
Walchester KA. 2014. ‘‘My petticoat encumbrances’; the ‘female adventurer’ and the North’ Nordlit : Tidsskrift i litteratur og kultur, :161-176 DOI Publisher Url
Walchester KA. 2012. Every Article of my Dress was a wonder to them': Reflexivity in Nineteenth-Century Travel Accounts by British Women Travellers in Norway Comparative Critical Studies, 9 :151-167 DOI Publisher Url
Walchester KA. 2012. Imperialism, Mountaineering and Gender in Norway. W.Cecil Slingsby's 'Norway: The Northern Playground (1904)and Mrs. Aubrey Le Blond's 'Mountaineering in the Land of the Midnight Sun' (1908) Victoriographies, 2
Walchester KA, Walchester K. 2011. Travelling with the Masses;British Women Travellers in late-nineteenth-century Norway and the "Anti-Tourist" Hanley K. Nineteenth-Century Contexts: an interdisciplinary journal, 33 :17-35 DOI Publisher Url
Walchester KA. 2008. 'Non vedete. E un rivoluzione.' [You don't see, it's a revolution]. Edward Lear; landscape painter and Italy Andrews H. Journal of Tourism Consumption and Practice, 1 :53-74 Publisher Url
Walchester KA, Walchester K. 2006. 'A real picture of natural and feminine feeling?' Anna Jameson's 'Diary of an Ennuyee' Journal of Anglo-Italian Studies, 8 :129-149
Chapters
Walchester K. 2023. Mountains, therapy, and the peripatetic writing space: Elizabeth Le Blond in France and Switzerland in the 1880s Baker KATIE, Walker NAOMI. A Space of Their Own Women, Writing and Place 1850-1950 Taylor & Francis 9781003270102 Author Url Publisher Url Public Url
Walchester K. 2023. Grand Tour Jafari J. Encyclopedia of Tourism Springer 9781134735327
Walchester K. 2023. ROMANTIC WOMEN TRAVEL WRITERS, POLITICS AND THE ENVIRONMENT: An ecofeminist reading of the Swiss landscape The Routledge Companion to Literature and Feminism :42-54 9780367410261 DOI
Walchester K. 2020. Beyond the Grand Tour: Norway and the Nineteenth-Century British Traveler Continental Tourism, Travel Writing, and the Consumption of Culture, 1814-1900 :201-218 9783030361457 DOI Publisher Url
Walchester KA. 2019. 'Norway and the Northern Tour' Colbert B, Morrison L. Continental Tourism, Travel Writing, and the Consumption of Culture in the Nineteenth Century Palgrave
Walchester KA. 2018. "But wither am I wandering?": Gender, Class, and Writing Space in Mary Wollstonecraft’s Letters Written During a Short Residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark Tally R. Teaching Space, Place and Literature :150-159 routledge. London 978-1-138-04697-9 DOI Publisher Url
Walchester KA. 2017. ‘Employment, mobility and cross-cultural communication in British Travelogues from the Long Nineteenth century’ Lambertsson E, Eschenbach J. Travel and Intercultural Communication. Going North :9-29 Cambridge Scholars. newcastle upon Tyne 978-1-4438-7914-9
Walchester KA. 2016. The British Traveller and Dark Tourism in eighteenth and nineteenth-century Scandinavia and the Nordic Regions Stone P. Handbook to Dark Tourism . London DOI Publisher Url
Walchester K. 2014. "What Norway really is" Women's travel writing, reality, and the supernatural in nineteenth-century Norway Women, Travel Writing, and Truth :44-57 9781138023529 DOI Publisher Url
Walchester KA. ‘‘What Norway Really Is;’ Nineteenth-Century Women’s Travel Writing, the Supernatural and Norway’ Women, Travel Writing and Truth
Walchester K. Ulric and Ilvina: The Scandinavian Tale [anon] (1797) London A. The Cambridge Guide to the Eighteenth-Century Novel, 1660-1820 Cambridge University Press. Cambridge
Walchester K. Ildegerte, Queen of Norway by August von Kotzbue [Benjamin Thompson, trans], (1798) London A. The Cambridge Guide to the Eighteenth-Century Novel, 1660-1820 Cambridge University Press. Cambridge
Editorial/letter to the editor
Forsdick C, Kinsley Z, Walchester K. 2021. Vertical travel: introduction Studies in Travel Writing, 25 :103-109 DOI Publisher Url
Book review
Walchester K. Topographic Memory and Victorian Travellers in the Dolomite Mountains: Peaks of Venice, by William Bainbridge; Dickens and the Italians in ‘Pictures from Italy’, by Germana Cubeta; Victorian Studies,
Other invited event:
Travel Writers and their Landscapes, King's College, London, Invited paper. 2023
'Mountains and Travels', University of Aosta, italy, Invited paper. 2022
Modern travel, Modern Landscape, University of Durham, Invited keynote. 2022
Conference presentation:
‘Nature writing, place and mobility; Copsford by Walter J. C. Murray (1949)’, Borders and Crossings. International travel Writing Conference, Tartu, Estonia, Oral presentation. 2022
Membership of professional bodies:
Executive member; Book Prize officer, University English (formerly CCUE). 2018
Member, British Association for Victorian Studies. 2012
Member, Institute for Learning. 2011
Member, British Comparative Literature Association.
External collaboration:
Ostfold University College, Halden, Norway, Dr. Eva Lambertsson. 2015
Liverpool Hope University, Dr. Zoe Kinsley. 2007
Liverpool University, Professor Charles Forsdick. 2007
Conference organisation:
Borders and Crossings / Seuils et traverses, co-organiser. 2014
Liverpool Travel Seminar, Co-Organiser. 2007