Sara Yahya Hamed (PhD Candidate)
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
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 with SWINC (Scottish Writing in the Nineteenth Century).
Member with the British Association of Romantic Studies.
Research summary
Sara's area of research focuses on the study of orientalism in Romantic poetry. She has particular interest in The Arabian Nights, as well as navigating intertextuality, poetic notes, 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
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.
Conference details
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 Entertainment 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.
- William Knight Award from Wordsworth Conference Foundation.
- Charles Lamb Society Award (BARS (Un)Conciousness Conference)
- The student orator of the MSc graduation ceremony in McEwan Hall.
- Sara's novel, Noble Creatures, won the AmiChoice Award of 2021.