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Dr Michael Perfect

Humanities and Social Science

Faculty of Arts Professional and Social Studies

Email: M.J.Perfect@ljmu.ac.uk

Telephone: 0151 231 3083

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I am a Reader in Contemporary Literature and Culture. I hold a PhD from the University of Cambridge, and before joining LJMU in 2016 I taught at Bilkent University in Ankara, at Cambridge, and in London. My main research and teaching interests are in twentieth- and twenty-first-century literature and culture, with particular emphases on contemporary British literature, postcolonial studies, modernist and postmodernist literature, film and adaptation studies, and theory. I am regarded as a leading expert on the celebrated, award-winning writer Andrea Levy, and am currently carrying out externally-funded research on her archive. I have also co-edited some of Levy's previously unseen work for posthumous publication. My book "Contemporary Fictions of Multiculturalism: Diversity and the Millennial London Novel" was published in 2014. My work has also appeared in publications such as ARIEL: A Review of International English Literature, the Journal of Commonwealth Literature, The Journal of Postcolonial Writing, The Journal for Cultural Research, The Dictionary of Literary Biography, The Literary Encyclopedia, and a number of edited collections. I am currently writing a book on Levy for Manchester UP, and am also working on a project that relates to screen adaptations of contemporary transnational fiction. I have appeared on local and national radio, and have written for the Guardian's Higher Education Network.

I currently lead three undergraduate modules at LJMU: 'Literary and Cultural Theory', 'Writing Race in Britain', and 'Migrants to the Screen'. I also teach on the undergraduate module 'Post-Millennial British Fiction', and the postgraduate module 'Mobilities'. I supervise undergraduate dissertations, postgraduate dissertations, and PhD theses. I welcome enquiries from students considering doctoral research in any of my areas of interest.

My various jobs prior to becoming a full-time academic included: working in the sixth form of a school in Southwark, London, teaching A Level English Literature and, as the Higher Education Lead, supporting non-privileged students with their university applications; teaching English as a second language for numerous years on insecure, zero-hours contracts; tutoring A Level and GCSE students; serving as the Finance Officer of a hospital for adults with learning disabilities; working in Human Resources departments; working in a supermarket, monitoring and ordering stock, stacking shelves, and working on checkouts; doing data entry as a temp; serving refreshments and cleaning in a café/restaurant.

Degrees

2011, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom, PhD English Literature
2006, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, United Kingdom, MA (Distinction) in Twentieth-Century and Contemporary Literature
2004, University of East Anglia, Norwich, United Kingdom, BA (First Class) in English Literature

Academic appointments

Reader in Contemporary Literature and Culture, Liverpool John Moores University, 2022 - present
Lecturer/Senior Lecturer in English Literature, Liverpool John Moores University, Liverpool, 2016 - 2022
Assistant Professor of English Literature, Bilkent University, Ankara, 2014 - 2016
Supervisor (part time), University of Cambridge, 2007 - 2012

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