Researcher

A graduate of the Universities of Edinburgh and Oxford, I began my doctoral research in 2015, under the supervision of Dr Carole Jones. I passed my viva in September 2019. My examiners were Professor Diane Purkiss (Oxford), Dr Monica Germana (Westminster) and Dr Allyson Stack (Edinburgh).

My thesis is entitled "'The Stories We Tell Ourselves to Make Ourselves Com True': Feminist Rewriting in the Canongate Myths Series". It investigates the rewriting process within the Canongate Myths publishing project. It asserts that this series provides a unique contemporary context in which to locate feminist debates regarding rewriting. The texts in the series, by authors including Margaret Atwood, Jeanette Winterson and Ali Smith, provide particular insights into how female writers can construct personal and public identities through an engagement with mythology and by so doing, help to destabilise the masculinised model of the subject.

My broader research interests include feminist literary theory and philosophy, fairy tales, fantasy, narratology and the gothic. I have a particular interest in the works of Angela Carter, Sarah Waters, A.S. Byatt and Georgette Heyer.

Publications:

MacMillan, Harriet. "Stealing Fire: Political Re-Appropriation of Verse Drama in Tony Harrison's Prometheus and Liz Lochhead's Medea". FORUM. Vol 22. 2016.

Conferences:

"'Witty Desecration': The Canongate Myths Series and De/Constructions of Femininity". Re-Reading Myths at the Beginning of the 21st Century. Hyperion University, Bucharest. June 9th, 2016.
"Translating Femininity in the Canongate Myths". Society for the History of Authorship, Reading and Publishing (SHARP) Annual Conference: The Languages of the Book. Paris. July 18th-22nd 2016.
"Subversions of Feminine Mythological Archetypes in “Orphan Black” and Margaret Atwood’s The Penelopiad". Messenger to the Stars: Science Fiction and Fantasy International Conference. University of Lisbon. 16-19 November 2016.
"Funeral Flowers and Femininity: Brutal Botany in Angela Carter's Fairy Tales". Fireworks: The Visual Imagination of Angela Carter. Royal West of England Academy. 9-10 January 2017.
"Brutal Botany and Fateful Femininity in the Fairy Tales of Angela Carter". Deeper than Swords: Fear and Loathing in Fantasy and Folklore. University of Edinburgh. 19-20 January 2017.
"Disentangling Penelope's Web: Feminist Rewriting in the Canongate Myths Series". British Federation of Women Graduates. 10 June 2017.

Presentations:

"Lessons I Learned Torturing Tourists: Academic Applications for Storytelling". LLC Blethers. University of Edinburgh. February 2016.
"Feminist Rewriting in the Canongate Myths". GenderJam. University of Edinburgh. Feburary 2016.
"How Not to Organise an Academic Conference". With Anahit Behrooz. LLC Blethers. University of Edinburgh. February 2017.

Other activities:

I am the co-founder and co-convenor of the LLC Fantasy and Folklore reading group. In 2017, we were awarded funding from the Researcher-Led Initiative to organise and chair a postgraduate conference. "Deeper than Swords: Fear and Loathing in Fantasy and Folklore" took place in January 2017, with keynotes from Professor Diane Purkiss (Oxford) and Dr Robert Maslen (Glasgow). As part of the conference, I led a creative writing workshop for delegates and members of the public.

I am a reader for the James Tait Black Prize and a peer-reviewer for FORUM journal. I also edit and write for Inciting Sparks. In 2016/17, I was co-convenor of the English Literature Work-in-Progress seminar series.

In 2017, I was part of the Spaces of Belonging project and led creative writing workshops for migrants, refugees and asylum seekers.