Recent thesis topics for the PhD in English.

Trofimova, Evija. "Paul Auster's Writing Machine: A Thing to Write With."
Treep, Elizabeth (Lucy). "An Imagined Space: The Dynamics of Home in Eve Langley's Novels."
Jeffreys, Alison. "Poetry and the Dynamics of Nature: Australia, Canada and New Zealand, 1920s to 1940s."
Boswell, Anna. "'Shakey notions': Settlement History on Display."

Olsen, Gregory David Paul. “Byron and God - Representations of Religion in the Writings of Lord Byron.”
Willis, Emma. "Absent Others: Dark Tourism, Theatricality, and Ethical Spectatorship."

McWilliams, Amber. “Our Lands, Our Selves: the postcolonial literary landscape of Maurice Gee and David Malouf.”
Poulsen, Ann Katrina Ingrid. “Another Way with Words - Language as a Twentieth-Century Art Practice.”
Hoare, Sally Ann “A Critical edition of The Triumphant Widow, or the Medley of Humours by William Cavendish and Thomas Shadwell”. Dean’s List
Cole, John Jeremy. “'Radical Difference': Wordsworth's Classical Imagination and Roman Ethos.”
Koroi, Bale Theresa Koula “The Long Way Home: Oral Narratives of Fiji. The Kau ni mata ni gone Ceremony.”.
Ooi, Kathy. “Reorientations: A Critical Study of Chineseness in New Zealand Literature.”
Zabicka , Agnieszka Izabela “Towards Feminist Aesthetics: Narrative Fissures and Bridging Strategies in the Novels by Mona Caird (1854-1932).”
Lloyd, Bronwyn Margaret. “Daemons and Dream Children: The Secret Lives of Rita Angus's Symbolic Portraits.”
Olsen, Kerryn Ruth. “Questions of Identity: Rewriting Anglo-Saxon Female Saints in Post-Conquest England c.1066-c.1500.”
Khan, Mahrukh Saeed. “Voicing the Other: Female Narrators in the Fiction of J.M. Coetzee and Albert Wendt.”

Pistacchi, Ann Katherine. “Spiralling Subversions: The Politics of Maori Cultural Survivance in the Recent Critical Fictions of Patricia Grace, Paula Morris, and Kelly Ana Morey.” Dean’s List
Montgomery ,Keith David. “Torrent of Portyngale: A Critical Edition.”
Smeed, Juliette. "The Material Life in Dickens' Novels."
Hunt, Alison. ""The Cage with the Open Door": Autobiography and Psychiatry in the Life and Works of Robin Hyde."

Marquis, Claudia Michaela. “Principled Pleasures: Reading the Fantastic in Victorian Children's Fiction.”
Dale, Margaret Claire. “Toward An Understanding Of The Languages And Politics Of Exchange, or In Search Of A Practical Elsewhere.”
King, Edmund George Coghill. “In The Character Of Shakespeare: Canon, Authorship, And Attribution In Eighteenth-Century England.”
Sturm, Sean Roderick. “Chamier the Epicurean: The Life and Works of George Chamier (1842-1915).”
Hunt , Alison Jane. “’The Cage with the Open Door’: Autobiography and Psychiatry in the Life and Works of Robin Hyde.”
Smeed, Juliette Emma. “The Material Life in Dickens' Novels.”

Elburg, Fredrika van. "The Vijftigers and the Language Poets: A Study of the Poetics of Two Experimental Groupings."
Haarhaus, Isabel. "Turning the stone of being': Migrant Poetics in the Novels of Janet Frame."

Hansen, Mei-Lin. "Te-Puea Aroha's Granddaughters: Representations of Maori Women in Maori Drama and Theatre 1980-2000."
Mountfort, Paul S. "Oracle-texts: the Western Tradition."
Roberson, Joanie M. "Poetry will be made by all not by one': Poetry and Poetics in Five New Zealand Women Poets."
Sturm, Jennifer D. "Fictionalising the Facts: An exploration of the 'place' of Aoteroa/New Zealand in the post-war autobiographical fiction of Anna Kavan."
Vincent, Paul J. "WHEN harey MET SHAKESPEARE: The Genesis of The First Part of Henry the Sixth."
Haarhaus, Isabel. ""Turning the stone of being": Migrant Poetics in the Novels of Janet Frame."

Marsh, Selina A. T. "Ancient Banyans, Flying Foxes and White Ginger: Five Pacific Women Writers."
Moloney, Helen J. "Robin Hyde and Frank Sargeson: Liminal Voices in New Zealand Literature."

Hunter, Lani Kavika. "Spirits of New Zealand: Early Pakeha Writings on Maori."
Brillinger, Matthew D. "Nabokov's Humor: The Play of Consciousness."
Mackay, Morag. "A Colonial Tale of Fact and Fiction': Nineteenth Century New Zealand Novels by Women."
Battista, Jon L. "Me he korokoro komako ['With the throat of a bellbird'] Maori Aesthetic in Maori Writing in English."

Kelly, Frances J. "In 'that Borderland Between': The Ambivalence of A. S Byatt's Fiction."
Parker, Cynthia M. "Contentious Birds: A Study of a Singular Middle English Verse Tradition."
Trussell, Denys J. "Fingers round the earth: a biography of A.R.D. Fairburn."

Dugdale, Sarah J. "Gee's Territory: Pakeha Society in the Fiction of Maurice Gee."
Kerr, Donald J. "Building Monument More Enduring than Brass: Governor Sir George Grey, a Study of his Book Collecting and the Formation of his Libraries."
Nicholls, Helen K. "Making Connections: an investigation into the role of metacognitive strategising and explicit use of connectives in improving the reading and writing of academic text in a Year 11 secondary English programme."

You can access a complete list of all theses completed for a PhD in English in the Theses and Dissertations database.

Subjects in our School