Dr Beth Roberts
About
Biography
Since completing my PhD at the University of Surrey in 2025, I have worked as an Associate and part-time Lecturer in English Literature at Surrey. My doctoral thesis, Feminist Pluralities in Twenty-First-Century Historiographic Metadrama, focused on the plays of Lauren Gunderson and Jaclyn Backhaus, considering how their work uses metadrama to offer feminist revisions of historical narratives; my debut monograph, Contemporary North American History Plays, refined this work. I am also a short story writer and novelist, specialising within the Gothic and historical fiction genres and reflecting on feminist positionality.
ResearchResearch interests
Feminist drama, history plays, metadrama, contemporary dramaturgy, the short story form, Gothic fiction, historical fiction.
Research projects
Working with Dr Beth Palmer and Dr Carl Thompson, I helped contribute to, launch and display the Surrey Cultural Lives map, following the creation of the Surrey Arts and Humanities Network (SAHN). The Surrey Cultural Lives map hosts an array of people who've shaped Surrey's cultural and social history. The creation of the SAHN and the map has led to a host of connections between the School of Arts, Humanities and Creative Industries and Surrey-based organisations, such as the Surrey History Centre, Brookwood Cemetery and Waverley Borough Council. During this project, I ran a competition for people in the local area to submit profiles to the map, and I also hosted a podcast where I interviewed academics and contributors.
Research interests
Feminist drama, history plays, metadrama, contemporary dramaturgy, the short story form, Gothic fiction, historical fiction.
Research projects
Working with Dr Beth Palmer and Dr Carl Thompson, I helped contribute to, launch and display the Surrey Cultural Lives map, following the creation of the Surrey Arts and Humanities Network (SAHN). The Surrey Cultural Lives map hosts an array of people who've shaped Surrey's cultural and social history. The creation of the SAHN and the map has led to a host of connections between the School of Arts, Humanities and Creative Industries and Surrey-based organisations, such as the Surrey History Centre, Brookwood Cemetery and Waverley Borough Council. During this project, I ran a competition for people in the local area to submit profiles to the map, and I also hosted a podcast where I interviewed academics and contributors.
Teaching
I am currently convening the following UG modules: Literary Histories I, Introduction to Creative Writing, Writing Poetry, Understanding Popular Culture, the UG Dissertation and CW Submission, Contemporary Storytelling and Writing the Victorians. I am guest lecturing on Thinking Like a Critic and I have previously convened Children's Literature and contributed to teaching on Modernism and Science Fiction.
Publications
Highlights
Roberts, B. (2026) Contemporary North American History Plays: Jaclyn Backhaus and Lauren Gunderson’s Feminist Reworkings. London and New York: Routledge.
Roberts, B. (2025) “Chapter 15,” in New2theScene (eds) New2theScene: 2025 Collection. Leeds: New2theScene.
Roberts, B. (2024) “Embers,” in Allen, M. and Allen, A. (eds) Dusk: Collected Short Stories. Brighton: Ironclad Creative.
Roberts, B. (2023) “Using Haraway’s Split Researcher in the Context of Theatre: A Case Study of Subject/Object in Romantic Love,” Feminist Encounters: A Journal of Critical Studies in Culture and Politics, 7(2), pp. 1-9. https://doi.org/10.20897/femenc/13550.
Roberts, B. (2020) “Her Last Temptation,” in Terence, M. (eds) All Those Things That You Never Thought Mattered. London: Michael Terence Publishing.