Sara Yahya Hamed (PhD Candidate)
PhD supervisors:
Availability
If you're a student with an enquiry in mind, please email me at syahyah@ed.ac.uk
Background
Sara is an academic researcher interested in eighteenth and nineteenth-century literary studies. She is currently working on a PhD focusing on Romantic Orientalism at the University of Edinburgh, where she also did her MSc in Literature and Society. She has a background in library curation, as well as teaching English language, literature, and academic writing. She's also a creative writer and a self-published novelist: the author of Noble Creatures, Immortal Breeze, and Crimson Ruby.
Qualifications
-Current PhD candidate, University of Edinburgh.
- MSc in Literature & Society: Enlightenment Romantic and Victorian, University of Edinburgh.
- Bachelors Degree in English Language and Literature (excellence with honours, first on batch).
Responsibilities & affiliations
GH Tutor in Literature Studies (LLC- University of Edinburgh).
Centre for Research Collections Assistant (Special Collections, University of Edinburgh Library).
IMES Library Assistant (Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies Department).
Assistant Editor at FORUM (University of Edinburgh Postgraduate Journal of Culture & the Arts).
LAMPS Seminar Secretary (Late Antique and Medieval PG Society).
Resource Centre Assistant at the Centre for Open Learning.
Assistant for SWINC (Scottish Writing in the Nineteenth Century).
Member with the British Association of Romantic Studies.
Undergraduate teaching
Sara is a tutor on the Literary Studies course taught at the School of Literatures Languages and Cultures, University of Edinburgh.
Research summary
Sara's area of research focuses on studying the role of Scottish literary networks in the distribution of Oriental books in the Romantic period. Her research sheds light on The Arabian Nights, and navigates intertextuality, poetic marginalia, aesthetics, and neo-medievalism.
Past research interests
Sara has previously worked with Victorian poetry and Victorian novels, biographical scholarship on Alfred Lord Tennyson, pastoral poetry, and Medieval Romances.Knowledge exchange
Event Assistant for the ‘Nature Nurture: Edinburgh’s Childgarden Heritage and Cultures of Care' symposium in 2025 funded by a CAHSS Developing Impact Award. The symposium was linked to the Nurture through Nature in Children’s Books exhibition at the Museum of Edinburgh, co-curated by the Museum of Childhood and project SELCIE.
Academic reviewer for the Journal of Aesthetic Education (University of Illinois Press). I am also a registered reviewer with The CEA Critic (Johns Hopkins University Press) and The BARS Review.
Papers delivered
The European Union and Carlsberg Foundation: Networks of Antiquity Conference, University of Copenhagen. 'Orientalist Literary Networks in Scottish Print Culture, 1790-1820', May 2026.
British Association of Romantic Studies' Romantic (Un)Consciousness Conference, University of Cambridge-Trinity Hall. ‘Scottish Networks, The Arabian Nights and Intertextuality in Southey's Thalaba the Destroyer’, Sep 2025.
Wordsworth Conference Foundation's Summer Conference, Rydal Hall. ‘Unreferenced Myths Borrowed from the Arabian Nights Entertainments and its Continuation in Southey’s Thalaba the Destroyer’, Aug 2025.
10th Annual Medieval & Early Modern Studies (MEMS) Conference, University of Kent. ‘Sir Orfeo’s Gentle Masculinity’, Jun 2024.
Coding the Nineteenth Century Conference (BARS & BAVS), The University of Glasgow. 'Figurations of Divinity in Prometheus Unbound and The Island of Doctor Moreau’, May 2024.
Academic publications:
'Unreferenced Myths Borrowed from the Arabian Nights Entertainments and Continuation in Southey's Thalaba the Destroyer', The Charles and Mary Lamb Journal (Charles Lamb Bulletin) edited by John Gardner, No.3, (CLB No.181), Summer 2025.
Non-academic publications:
Blog piece for project SELCIE (Scotland’s Early Literature for Children Initiative): 'The Realms of Fantastic Animals in the Arabian Nights', 2025. https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/selcie/2025/03/21/the-realms-of-fantastic-animals-in-the-arabian-nights/
Novels: Crimson Ruby (2016), Immortal Breeze (2017), Noble Creatures (2020).
- William Knight Bursary from Wordsworth Conference Foundation.
- Charles Lamb Society Award.
- Sara's novel, Noble Creatures, won the AmiChoice Award of 2021.