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Amelie Doche

Languages and Literature, Birmingham City University

Thesis title:

A Qualitative Study of the Reception of the Literary Arts and its Implications for Public Funding for Writing in the Midlands and Beyond

My doctoral research is carried out in collaboration with Writing West Midlands (hereafter WWM), the Birmingham-based literature agency dedicated to promoting creative writing and reading. My thesis examines discourses of ‘value’ in contemporary English literary culture. Specifically, I explicitly explore the literary, sociological, and philosophical conditions under which new literary works are received and evaluated. Influenced by – but not confined to – post-qualitative inquiry, my diffractive methodology challenges dominant approaches to both ontology and epistemology by implicitly addressing two core questions: (i) how to define research, researched, and researched (i.e., ontological problem)? and (ii) how to re-present the multiple faces of the truth (i.e., epistemological problem)?

My first chapter focuses on Arts Council England (hereafter ACE)’s synecdochic construal of value, whereby value simultaneously refers to economic (money) or humanistic (happiness) pursuits. In so doing, ACE enacts the idea that happiness can be measured and quantified – a symptom of scientism. Since the funding cuts of 2010, ACE has adopted two key strategies to evidence the value of culture: (i) recruiting well-being econometrics to show value through Social Return on Investment (hereafter SROI) and (ii) commissioning Evidence-Based Research (hereafter EBR) aimed to perform cultural advocacy. The reliance on – and popularity of – SROI and EBR needs to be understood within the wider context of consumer capitalism, the rise of positive psychology, and the increased reports of depression and chronic fatigue syndrome (hereafter ME/CFS). Through a detailed analysis of SROI and EBR reports, my research exposes the limitations of both methodologies in accurately assessing the value of culture with an emphasis on literature. These limitations include: inappropriate analytical methods, ethically questionable conceptual frameworks, and the gap between ACE’s self-appointed role as the ‘guardian of literary culture’ and its market-driven practices. Finally – taking WWM as an exemplar – I reflect on the ways in which National Portfolio Organisations (hereafter NPOs), perhaps despite their own values, are increasingly encouraged to adopt these same restrictive methodologies to secure future funding.

My second chapter discusses hegemonic discourses of value as they intersect with feel-good literature, online discourses of ME/CFS recovery, our culture of immediacy, our society’s fetishisation of self-help (to cure one’s mental and physical diseases) and self-improvement (to increase one’s performance and success). During times of personal and cultural crises, a majority of readers turn to feel-good romance and pop poetry for comfort and escapism. I read the production and reception of Donna Ashworth’s Wild Hope and Kim Nash’s Escape to the Country – among others – diffractively through the lenses of mass-entertainment consumer culture, mental capitalism, performative vulnerability and sincerity (assessed in the author – ad hominem), the instrumentalisation of imagination in popular self-help, and atomism. This chapter is structured into three main sections. The first section examines readers’ attraction to feel-good genres, framed by two types of knowledge activation: archetypal – where the myth of the personal salvation narrative is both reproduced and coproduced – and cultural. The second section investigates the appeal of feel-good genres in relation to contemporary inclinations towards magical thinking – an extreme version of positive psychology – and infantilism. The third section considers feel-good literature as an atomistic literature of the ego – despite its social nature – thriving within both capitalist frameworks and mindfulness culture’s emphasis on the present moment as the ultimate value.

My third chapter delves into counter-hegemonic discourses of value as they interweave with ‘difficult’ literature – works that are stylistically complex and/or emotionally or intellectually demanding – alongside literary events and festivals (focusing on WWM), publicly-funded literature (focusing on ACE), the renewed popularity of the Greek art of self-cultivation and eudaimonia, the decline of long therapies such as psychoanalysis, and the rise of the Slow movement. During times of personal and cultural crises, some readers turn to literary fiction, high-quality non-fiction, and poetry for understanding and catharsis. I read the production and reception of Roz Goddard’s Small Moon Curve and Marianne Brooker’s Intervals: A Politics of Care – among others – diffractively through the lenses of traditional literary culture, anti-capitalism, authenticity and vulnerability (assessed in the literary writing – ad valorem), and the ideal of a pluralist society. This chapter is structured into three main sections. The first section examines readers’ attraction to difficult genres in light of defamiliarisation, whereby textual features (at a micro level) enable readers to construct alternative cultural schemas (at a macro level) and, in so doing, creates opportunities to question the status quo. The second section investigates the appeal of difficult genres in fostering mature pro-social behaviours and intelligence. The third section considers difficult literature as community-oriented – despite its individual nature – whose value lies in understanding the past and mapping the present to imagine a different future.  

Finally, after summarising my findings, I engage policymakers in a discussion on a key knowledge-gap requiring attention: the merging of ‘pop’ and ‘traditional’ poetry in ACE’s policy, despite both genres attracting distinct audiences and promoting different values. I also highlight two significant practice-gaps that reveal inconsistencies:  (i) the interplay between market-driven practices and artistic autonomy, which leads ACE to promote opposite values simultaneously, and (ii) the gap between the recognition and inclusion of popular literary practices by NPOs – particularly WWM – and their ongoing invisibility in ACE’s official documents and policies.


[Updated November 2024]


Research Area

  • Languages and Literature

Publications

Academic

Peer-reviewed articles

Doche, Amélie, and Andrew S. Ross. '"Here Is My Shameful Confession: I Don't Really 'Get' Poetry": Discerning Reader Types in Responses to Sylvia Plath's Ariel on Goodreads'. Textual Practice 37, no. 6 (2023): 976-996.

Doche, Amélie. 'Relationships, Ideology, and Transitivity: Reading Paul Morel's Mental Landscape'. Journal of Languages, Texts and Society, no. 6 (2023): 8-31.

Doche, Amélie. 'Lockdown, Literature, and Online Culture: Opportunities and Challenges. Insights from the West Midlands'. Ubiquity Press 2, no.1 (2022). 

Doche, Amélie. 'Hear, Here! Conversations, Equations, Translation: On Jonathan Davidson's A Commonplace (2020)'. Journal of Languages, Texts and Society, no. 5 (2021): 225-248.

Doche, Amélie. 'The Art of Coming-In-This-World: On Sylvia Plath's "Elm"'. Iperstoria, no. 17 (2021): 323-342. 

Peer-reviewed book chapters

Doche, Amélie. 'A Diffractive Approach to Reader Response (with Reference to Barnes's The Sense of an Ending)'. In Applied Cognitive Ecostylistics: From Ego to Eco, edited by Malgorzata Drewniok and Marek Kuzniak, 33-50. London: Bloomsbury, 2024.

Pager-McClymont, Kimberley, Sarah Eichhorn, and Amélie Doche. 'T/V in the 21st Century: A Case Study of French'. In The Routledge Handbook of Pronouns, edited by Laura L. Paterson, 243-257. New York: Routledge, 2023. 

Master's thesis

Doche, Amélie. 'Dialogic Strategies and Outcomes In and Around Julian Barnes's The Sense of an Ending (2011): A Linguistic-Stylistic Analysis'. Master's thesis, Université Jean Moulin Lyon 3, 2020. 

Reviews

Doche, Amélie. Review of the book Reading Habits in the Covid-19 Pandemic: An Applied Linguistic Perspective by Abigail Boucher, Marcello Giovanelli, Chloe Harrison, Robbie Love, and Caroline Godfrey. English Studies (9 Oct. 2024).

Doche, Amélie. Review of the book Why Study Languages?, by Gabrielle Hogan-Brun. Babel: The Language Magazine, no. 37 (Nov. 2021): 47. Digital Archive - Babel n°37.

Doche, Amélie. Review of the book Nuremberg's Voice of Doom: The Autobiography of the Chief Interpreter at History's Greatest Trials, by Wolfe Frank (edited by Paul Hooley). Babel: The Language Magazine, no. 37 (Nov. 2021): 49. Digital Archive - Babel n°37.

Doche, Amélie. Review of the book Style and Reader Response: Minds, Media, Methods, edited by Alice Bell, Sam Browse, Alison Gibbons and David Peplow. Linguist List, no. 32.2740 (25 Aug. 2021). 

Doche, Amélie. 'Topographical Collection of King George III'. American Journalism 38, no. 2 (2021): 247-248.

Doche, Amélie. Review of the book 492 Confessions d'un tueur à gages, by Klester Cavalcanti. La Villa Gillet, 3 May 2020

Non-Academic

Poetry

Le MédiaPhi, 2018-20, 4 poems: 'Le Corps' (19), 'Ex-ducere: un slam' (20), 'Dé-tendre' (21) & 'Anesthésie' (22). 

Le Passe-Murailles, 2018, 1 poem: 'L'isolement est un long séjour' (75).

Translation English > French

Guide 'Read On', 2021. 'Read On Guide', brochure produced by Writing West Midlands and printed by Clarkeprint. https://readon.eu/resources/download/Read%20On%20Guide-French.pdf. 

'Le silence', 2020. 'The Silence', poem published in A Commonplace: Apples, Bricks & Other People's Poems by Jonathan Davidson. https://jonathandavidson.net/projects/a-commonplace-translations/. 

'Une équation du second degré', 2020. 'A Quadratic Equation', poem published in A Commonplace : Apples, Bricks & Other People's Poems by Jonathan Davidson. https://jonathandavidson.net/projects/a-commonplace-translations/. 

Conferences

  • 'The Manifestation of Voice in Online Book Reviews: Engagement and Diffraction'. Paper presented at the 9th IALS Conference: A Game of Theories, Vilnius University, Lithuania (online), 22-24 October 2021. 
  • 'Online Interpersonal Literacies in Praxis: A SFL-based Stylistic Analysis of Readers' Responses to The Sense of an Ending (2011)'. Paper presented at the PALA Conference, University of Nottingham, UK (online), 7-9 July 2021. 
  • 'Writing and Difference: Towards a Diffractive Stylistics?' Paper presented at the Material Encounters Summer Colloquium: Uncertain Knowledge(s), Birmingham City University, UK (online), 7 July 2021.
  • 'Interpersonal Metadiscourse in Amazon Customer Reviews of Literary Fiction and its Implications for Construing Genre'. Paper presented at the 3rd Metadiscourse Across Genre Conference, Universitat Jaume I de Castelló, Spain (online), 27-28 May 2021.
  • 'Comparative Approaches to the Study of Online Book Reviews: Between Inter-Actions and Intra-Actions'. Paper presented at the Applied Stylistics Symposium, Aston University, UK (online), 6-7 May 2021.
  • 'Responding to the Covid-19 Crisis: Towards Greater Inclusion and Representation in Literature?' Paper presented at the Conference Pandemic Perspectives 2021: Reflections on the Post-Covid World (online), 20 April 2021.
  • 'An APPRAISAL Analysis of Online Reading Responses to Julian Barnes's The Sense of an Ending'. Paper presented at the Conference Digital Practices: Reading, Writing and Evaluation on the Web, University of Basel, Switzerland (online), 23-25 November 2020.
  • 'On Re-Presentations and Emotions: A Study of Metaphorical and Physiognomic Expressions in Sylvia Plath's "Elm"'. Paper presented at Memory, Affects and Emotions: International Interdisciplinary Conference, University of Gdańsk, Poland (online), 10-11 August 2020.
  • 'Literary Authenticity and Guided Interpretations in Julian Barnes's Fiction'. Paper presented at the 2nd International Interdisciplinary Conference: Freedom and Authenticity. University of Gdańsk, Poland (online). 8-10 July 2020.
  • 'What Does Make it Feel Cerebral? Investigating Readers' Responses to Literature Using Corpus-Based Techniques'. Poster presented at the University of Georgia Postgraduate Linguistics Conference, Athens, USA (in person), 4 December 2019.
Internal talks
  • 'Using Concepts from Quantum Physics to Research English'. Paper presented at the Research Entanglements Conference, Birmingham City University (in person), 17 July 2024.
  • 'A Few Words About My PhD: A Qualitative Study of the Reception of the Literary Arts and its Implications for Public Funding for Writing in the Midlands and Beyond'. Open mic presented at Birmingham City University PGR Studio Inside//Out PhD Festival (online), 27 January 2021.
Invited talks
  • 'Sea, Sex & Stylistics in D.H. Lawrence's Sons and Lovers and Julian Barnes's The Sense of an Ending'. Paper presented at the Literature, Place and Space Conference, Birmingham City University (online), 2 November 2021.
  • 'Ideas as Research'. Short lecture given for students of the Postgraduate Certificate in Research Practice, Birmingham City University, 13 October 2021.
  • 'Jonathan Coe's Middle England: Paratexts, Interpretations, Receptions'. Paper given at an English Research Seminar, Birmingham City University (online), 16 June 2021.

Public Engagement & Impact

Scholarly Activity

  • Current: Jan 2024 - present: External stakeholder for the Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Caucus (EDICa).
  • Current: Sept. 2020 - present: Audited modules: 'Corpus Linguistics' at Birmingham City University, autumn semester 2021 (online); 'Creative Non-Fiction' at Birmingham City University, autumn semester 2021 (in person); 'Reading Into Writing' at Birmingham City University, spring semester 2021 (online); 'Qualitative Research Writing Workshop' at the University of Georgia, autumn semester 2020 (online). 
  • Nov. 2020 - Nov. 2023 : Postgraduate Representative to the Institute of English Studies (IES) Advisory Council. 
  • July 2022: Postgraduate Peer-reviewer for Iperstoria.
  • 22 October 2021: Panel Chair, IALS 2021. Vilnius University, Lithuania. (Online).
  • May 2021: Postgraduate Peer-reviewer for Makings Journal.
  • 21 September 2021. Guest Speaker at the panel 'Beginning Your Doctoral Studies' targeted at incoming PhD students. Midlands4Cities Induction 2021. Fazeley Studios, Birmingham. 
  • 23rd April 2021: Conference ChairBirmingham English Language Postgraduate Virtual Conference. University of Birmingham. (Online). Roundtable: 'Progressing Research During Covid' with panellists Ashley Blake, Nouf Alharbi, and Bingjun Zhang.
  • Dec. 2020 - Jan. 2021: ELIT Training School Attendee. Theme: Literary Theory and Text Analysis.
  • Aug. 2020 - Aug. 2021: Peer-review Editor for the Journal of Languages, Texts & Society (LTS), Issues 4 & 5, University of Nottingham.
  • 11th Aug. 2020: Panel Chair, session V. Memory, Affects and Emotions: International Interdisciplinary Conference. University of Gdańsk, Poland. (Online).
  • 8th and 9th of July 2019: PALA Summer School Attendee. Theme: Text-World Theory.
Literature & Literary Translation

  • Oct. 2019 - March 2020: Student Judge for the Jean Moulin University Lyon 3 Caméléon Literary Translation Prize. The 2019-20 edition rewarded the best literary translation from contemporary Irish literature into French.
  • Oct. 2018 - March 2019: Student Judge for the Jean Moulin University Lyon 3 Caméléon Literary Translation Prize. The 2018-19 edition rewarded the best literary translation from contemporary Polish literature into French. 
  • May 2018: Session Moderator at the 'Assises Internationales du Roman', Lyon's major literary festival facilitated by The Villa Gillet.

Other Research Interests

  • Reader-response & audience studies
  • Social media & user-generated content
  • Qualitative & post-qualitative research methods
  • Contemporary book culture
  • Cultural policy
  • Stylistics
  • Systemic Functional Linguistics
  • Platform studies
  • Philosophy

Memberships

Qualifications

  • Postgraduate Certificate in Research Practice in English, March 2021. Birmingham City University. Distinction.
  • MRes English Linguistics, Literature & History of Ideas, July 2020. Université Jean Moulin Lyon 3 (& The University of Georgia). High Distinction.
  • BA English Linguistics, Literature & Culture, July 2017. Université Jean Moulin Lyon 3 (& The University of Liverpool). First-class Honours.

Relevant Employment

Teaching
  • March 2021 - May 2023: PhD Tutor in English as part of The Brilliant Tutoring Programme. (Part-time fixed-term contract).
  • April 2019 - July 2019: Early Years Teaching Assistant at Dailloux Kindergarten. (Part-time fixed-term contract). 
  • Sept. 2018 - June 2019: Lecturer - English as a Foreign Language at Amos Sport Business School, Lyon, France. I designed and taught the following undergraduate modules: 'English for Academic Purposes' (EAP) and 'The Discourse of Sports Marketing'. (Part-time fixed-term contract).
  • Oct. 2017 - June 2018: Teaching Assistant - French as a Foreign Language at Sir Thomas Rich's School, Gloucester, UK. (Part-time fixed-term contract).
Education
  • Sept. 2018 - June 2019: Prison Curriculum Lead at Genepi Lyon. I designed the courses 'Literacy through Creative Writing' and 'An Introduction to French Children's Literature', which were due to be implemented in 2020 in one youth detention centre based in Lyon (l'Etablissement Pénitentiaire pour Mineurs de Meyzieu). Their implementation has been delayed due to Covid-19.
  • Oct. 2017 - June 2018: After-School Club Assistant at Leckhampton Church of England Primary School with Child's Play Club UK. (Part-time fixed-term contract).

Awards & Funding

  • November 2024: M4C Researcher Development Fund - £130 for a software subscription.
  • March 2021: PGR Studio's Researcher Development Award, Birmingham City University (with Pierre d'Alancaisez et Vincent Obia). Project: "Thinking, researching, and being online". Budget: £600 to organise a series of three workshops.
  • Oct. 2020 - March 2026: Collaborative Doctoral Award, Birmingham City University & Writing West Midlands. Fully funded (fees and stipend) by Midlands 4 Cities, Arts and Humanities Research Council. 
  • July 2019 - December 2019: Visiting student at The University of Georgia (USA). Fully funded (fees and stipend) by the Aide à la Mobilité Internationale (AMI), Explora' Sup and the Crous. 
  • Sept. 2016 - June 2017: Exchange student at The University of Liverpool (UK). Fully funded (fees and stipend) by Erasmus +, Explora'Sup and the Crous.
  • July 2010: Merit Award for exceptional Brevet results (GCSE equivalent). 1,000€ per high-school year, funded by the Ministry of National Education.