Erin Symons

Biography

Background

Erin Symons is a PhD candidate at the University of Edinburgh. Her doctoral thesis, which is funded by the Scottish Graduate School of Arts and Humanities (SGSAH), examines the institutional and cultural phenomenon of “Cambridge Criticism” and its global extensions, with an emphasis on how modernist critics such as T. S. Eliot, F. R. Leavis, and I. A. Richards figure in postcolonial literary production and the organization of global literary studies. She earned her BA in English from the University of British Columbia in 2021 with a place on the Dean's List for Academic Excellence, followed by her MA in 2023. Her MA thesis, entitled “Literature Beyond Criticism: Ian McEwan in the School of F. R. Leavis,” was funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) and earned her a mark of distinction for its investigation of the institutional and literary-intellectual formation of Ian McEwan in the postwar period of British educational reform.

Erin has taught courses in Modern British Literature and Contemporary Environmental Literature. She currently acts as treasurer of the Edinburgh Postgraduate Society, organizer of the Literatures, Languages and Cultures ‘Work in Progress’ Seminar Series and assistant editor of the postgraduate journal FORUM.  

Qualifications

PhD  - English Literature, In Progress

MA with Distinction – English Literature, University of British Columbia, 2023.

BA (Deans List 2017-2021) – English Literature, University of British Columbia, 2021.

Responsibilities & affiliations

T. S. Eliot Society – Member

Modern Languages Association - Member

University of Edinburgh Postgraduate Society - Treasurer

School of Literature, Languages and Culture Work in Progress Seminar Series - organizer

 

Current project grants

Scottish Graduate School of Arts and Humanities AHRC Doctoral Training Partnership

Past project grants

SSHRC Social Sciences and Humanities Council of Canada Graduate Scholarship Award (2022)
UBC Faculty of Arts Graduate Award (2021)
UBC Deputy Vice-Chancellor Scholarship (2019)
BUTEX Award (2019)
Hugh M. Brock Education Abroad Scholarship (2019)

Papers delivered

"The Rise of Lyric Modernism: T. S. Eliot Overwrites A. E. Housman" -  International T. S. Eliot Society 46th Annual Meeting, Trinity College, Dublin. July 2025. 

“Supersession and Lyric Modernism: T. S. Eliot and A Shropshire Lad” – PhD Research Seminar, University of Edinburgh, May 2025. 

“Postcoloniality, Order and Myth: T. S. Eliot and Chinua Achebe’s No Longer at Ease” -  International T. S. Eliot Society 45th Annual Meeting, St. Louis. September 2024.

“Inscribing the (Anti)Body in Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway” -  EndNotes Conference, University of British Columbia, Vancouver. May 2022.

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