Research Interests
Art History Australian History Australian Literature British and Irish Literature British History Cultural Studies Cultural Theory Culture, Gender, Sexuality European Literature Gender Studies Heritage and Cultural Conservation Language in Culture and Society Literary Studies Literary Theory Literatures in English Materials Conservation Museum Studies New Zealand History New Zealand Literature Pacific Cultural Studies Pacific History Pacific Literature Postcolonial Studies Textile and Fashion Design Visual CulturesDr Madeleine Seys
School of Humanities
College of Creative Arts, Design and Humanities
Eligible to supervise Masters and PhD - email supervisor to discuss availability.
I am a researcher, writer and artist in the interwoven fields of literary studies and material cultural studies. My research explores: nineteenth-century literary and fashion histories; Australian literary and material histories; Pasifika photography and visual art; theories and experiences of gender and sexuality; histories of feminism and women's movements; embodiment and corporeality; museology and curatorial studies. Working with textual, material and visual sources, I employ queer and interdisciplinary methodologies to explore and enact the making of stories and identities and objects. My doctoral research undertaken at The University of Adelaide explored the use of dress as a way to encode narratives of female sexuality and agency in British popular literature from 1860 to 1900. This work was published as Fashion and Narrative in Victorian Popular Literature: Double Threads by Routledge in 2018. I write scholarly research and creative non-fiction across my fields of interest. I am a member of the Australasian Victorian Studies Association executive committee and the editorial board for the Australasian Journal of Victorian Studies and social media coordinator for the Mary Elizabeth Braddon Association.I also work as an academic editor, consulting museum and exhibition curator, fashion historian and bespoke tailor.
I live and work on unceded Kaurna land in Adelaide, and pay my respects to Kaurna elders past, present and emerging.
I am a researcher, writer and artist in the interwoven fields of literary studies and material cultural studies. My primary research interests are: Australian literary and material histories; nineteenth-century literary and fashion histories; Pasifika photography and visual art; theories and experiences of gender and sexuality; histories of feminism and women's movements; embodiment and corporeality; and museology and curatorial studies. Working with textual, material and visual sources, I employ queer and interdisciplinary methodologies to explore and enact the making of stories and identities and objects.
My doctoral research undertaken at The University of Adelaide explored the use of dress as a way to encode narratives of female sexuality and agency in British popular literature from 1860 to 1900. This work was published as Fashion and Narrative in Victorian Popular Literature: Double Threads by Routledge in 2018. I write scholarly research and creative non-fiction across my fields of interest. My work has been published in Artlink, Women’s Writing, Australasian Journal of Victorian Studies, Victorian Review, and Nineteenth Century Gender Studies.
As Postdoctoral Research Fellow on the Australian Research Council Special Research Initiative “Between Indian and Pacific Oceans: Reframing Australian Literature” 2021-2023 (SR200200704), I am currently researching Anglo-Irish Australian writer Beatrice Grimshaw's Pacific Ocean writings. I am also researching the use of Pacific shells and pearls in ninteteenth-century Australian jewelry. My current projects, in words and threads, explore the oceanic, literary, and material cultural currents of the southern oceans.
I am a member of the J. M. Coetzee Centre for Creative Practice at The University of Adelaide. I am also a member of the Australasian Victorian Studies Association executive committee and the editorial board for the Australasian Journal of Victorian Studies and social media coordinator for the Mary Elizabeth Braddon Association.
I also work as an academic editor, consulting museum and exhibition curator, fashion historian and bespoke tailor.
| Language | Competency |
|---|---|
| English | Can read, write, speak, understand spoken and peer review |
| Italian | Can read, speak and understand spoken |
| Date | Institution name | Country | Title |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2010 - 2015 | The University of Adelaide | Australia | PhD |
| 2007 - 2010 | The University of Adelaide | Australia | Bachelor of Arts Honours |
| Year | Citation |
|---|---|
| 2025 | Seys, M. C. P. (2025). Textile Orientalisms: Cashmere and Paisley Shawls in British Literature and Culture. JOURNAL OF BRITISH STUDIES, 64, 3 pages. |
| 2022 | Seys, M. C. (2022). “'The Muslin Gown as ‘a White Unblemished Page’: Sensational Femininities and Literatures in Mary Elizabeth Braddon’s Aurora Floyd and The Doctor’s Wife”. Women's Writing, 29(1), 63-80. |
| 2021 | Seys, M. (2021). #IMadeMyClothes: The Ethics and Practices of Home Dressmaking. Artlink: Australian contemporary art quarterly, 41(1), 30-33. |
| 2019 | Delafield, C. (2019). "Novel/magazine interfaces: the “long” serialisation of Wilkie Collins’s Armadale". Australasian Journal of Victorian Studies, 23(1), 1-13. |
| 2019 | Gagne, A. (2019). "Manus Ex Machina: The Tactile Interface of Lady Audley’s Secret". Australasian Journal of Victorian Studies, 23(1), 67-79. |
| 2019 | Leonardo Silva, B. (2019). "The Gaze Between: What Happens when the Egyptian Harem Re-turns the Gaze of an Englishwoman". Australasian Journal of Victorian Studies, 23(1), 52-66. |
| 2019 | Kavanagh, F. (2019). "“Marianne Knight | Godmersham Park”: Inscription as Community Interface in the Books of Jane Austen’s Niece". Australasian Journal of Victorian Studies, 23(1), 14-27. |
| 2019 | Chew, R. (2019). The Last of England: A Work for Solo Piano After the Painting by Ford Madox Brown. Australasian Journal of Victorian Studies, 23(1), 39-51. |
| 2019 | Seys, M. C. (2019). “It’s All Woman’s Work from One End to Another”: Embroidering the Truth in M. E. Braddon’s Lady Audley’s Secret. Nineteenth-Century Gender Studies, 15(2). |
| 2019 | Seys, M., & Treagus, M. (2019). Introduction: Victorian Interfaces. Australasian Journal of Victorian Studies, 23(1), i-x. |
| 2019 | Seys, M., & Treagus, M. (2019). Introduction: Victorian Interfaces. Australasian Journal of Victorian Studies, 23(1), i-x. |
| 2017 | Seys, M. (2017). Museum Catalogue Record: William Morris’s News From Nowhere. Victorian Review, 43(1), 30-35. |
| 2017 | Treagus, M. A., & Seys, M. (2017). Looking Back at Samoa: History, Memory, and the Figure of Mourning in Yuki Kihara’s Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?. asian diasporic visual cultures and the americas, 3(1-2), 86-109. Scopus4 |
| Year | Citation |
|---|---|
| 2022 | Seys, M. (2022). A Fashion History of South Australia. |
| 2018 | Seys, M. C. (2018). Fashion and Narrative in Victorian Popular Literature: Double Threads. New York, USA: Routledge. DOI Scopus2 |
| 2014 | Tonkin, M., Treagus, M., Seys, M., & De Rosa, S. C. (Eds.) (2014). Changing the Victorian Subject. Adelaide: University of Adelaide Press. DOI |
| Year | Citation |
|---|---|
| 2021 | Seys, M. (2021). “Rational Dress ‘As an Expression of the Fin-de-Siecle Aspiration towards Equality of the Sexes’”. In D. Rall (Ed.), Women & Power: The Politics of Dress (pp. 24-44). Intellect. DOI |
| 2020 | Seys, M. C. (2020). Rational Dress. In L. Scholl (Ed.), The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Victorian Women's Writing (pp. 4 pages). Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan. DOI |
| 2020 | Seys, M. C. (2020). Androgyny in Dress. In L. Scholl (Ed.), The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Victorian Women's Writing (pp. 9 pages). Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan. DOI |
| 2020 | Seys, M. C. (2020). "Mourning Dress". In L. Scholl (Ed.), Palgrave Encyclopedia of Victorian Women's Writing. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan. DOI |
| 2019 | Seys, M. (2019). “Muslins, Confidences, and Illicit Conversations”: Fashioning Subversive Femininities in George Moore’ A Drama in Muslin. In H. Janine, & N. Moody (Eds.), Fashion and Material Culture in Victorian Fiction and Periodicals (pp. 191-204). Brighton, East Sussex; United Kingdom: Edward Everett Root. |
| 2014 | Seys, M. (2014). The scenery and dresses of her dreams: reading and reflecting (on) the Victorian heroine in M.E. Braddon's the Doctor's Wife. In M. Tonkin, M. Treagus, M. Seys, & S. Crozier De Rosa (Eds.), Changing the Victorian subject (pp. 177-199). Australia: University of Adelaide Press. |
| 2014 | Tonkin, M., Treagus, M., Seys, M., & Crozier-De Rosa, S. (2014). Re-visiting the Victorian subject. In M. Tonkin, M. Treagus, M. Seys, & S. Crozier De Rosa (Eds.), Changing the Victorian subject (pp. 1-19). Australia: University of Adelaide Press. |
| Year | Citation |
|---|---|
| 2019 | Seys, M. C. (2019). "Thinking through Cloth". Poster session presented at the meeting of unpublished. Fabrik Arts. |
| Year | Citation |
|---|---|
| 2015 | Authors: Seys M. Title: Lady Audley’s Secret Reimagined: “Excerpt from clinical notebook of Monsieur Val, Villebrumeuse, Belgium.”. Extent: 1. |
| Year | Citation |
|---|---|
| 2019 | Sullivan, N., Seys, M., & Joscelyne, H. (2019). Daring to be Different (No. Of Pieces: 7 months) [Curation of Museum exhibition]. Migration Museum: FEAST - Adelaide Queer Arts & Cultural Festival. |
| 2019 | Sullivan, N., Seys, M., & Joscelyne, H. (2019). Daring to be Different (No. Of Pieces: 7 months) [Curation of Museum exhibition]. Migration Museum: FEAST - Adelaide Queer Arts & Cultural Festival. |
| 2019 | Seys, M. C. (2019). A Queer Night at the Museum Tour (No. Of Pieces: 2 hours) [Researched Museum Tour]. Migration Museum (Adelaide). |
| 2016 | Prosser, R. (2016). "Showgirl: The Costumes of an Iconic Adelaide Diva" (No. Of Pieces: 2 days) [Exhibition]. Migration Museum, Adelaide. |
| 2016 | Prosser, R. (2016). "Showgirl: The Costumes of an Iconic Adelaide Diva" (No. Of Pieces: 2 days) [Exhibition]. Migration Museum, Adelaide. |
| 2014 | Seys, M. (2014). “Black in Fashion”: An Exhibition of Black in Sartorial Fashion and Interior Design, 1860-present (No. Of Pieces: 15 days) [Exhibition]. Ayers House Museum, Adelaide.. |
| 2013 | Seys, M. C. (2013). “Frisque”: An Exhibition of Lingerie and Underwear, 1888-1930 (No. Of Pieces: 17 days) [Exhibition]. Ayers House Museum, Adelaide.. |
| 2012 | Seys, M. C. (2012). “All the Trimmings": An Exhibition of Fringes Through the Ages. (No. Of Pieces: 23 days) [Exhibition]. Ayers House Museum, Adelaide. |
| 2011 | Seys, M. C. (2011). 175 Years of South Australian Fashion: An Exhibition. (No. Of Pieces: 31 days) [Exhibition]. Ayers House Museum, Adelaide.. |
| Year | Citation |
|---|---|
| 2014 | Seys, M. C. (2014). Double Threads: Reading Dress, Fashion, Narrative and Representations of Femininity in Victorian Popular Literature. (PhD Thesis, The University of Adelaide). |
| Year | Citation |
|---|---|
| 2020 | Seys, M. C. (2020). "Tailoring Don Dunstan". History Trust of South Australia. |
| 2014 | Seys, M. (2014). The story of .… tweed. The Conversation, Australia. |
I am recipient of the following grants:
2021-3
Postdoctoral Research Fellow on ARC SRI project "Between the Indian and Pacific Oceans: Reframing Australian Literature" (SR200200704) with Chief Investigators Associate Professors Mandy Treagus and Meg Samuelson at The University of Adelaide.
2011-4
Recipient of E. W. Benham Scholarship for Postgraduate Research in English Literature (The University of Adelaide).
I have eleven years of experience as a tertiary educator in the intersecting fields of literary and cultural studies. My approach to teaching is interactive, inclusive and interdisciplinary, through which I seek to educate and inspire students to read critically and develop as bold and independent thinkers and informed global citizens. My teaching expertise are: eighteenth to twenty-first century literature and literary theory; nineteenth-century history and culture; Australian literatures; academic writing; and popular cultures.
I have taught the following courses in the Department of English and Creative Writing at The University of Adelaide:
2021
Semester 2: ENGL3050 Ways of Reading
Semester 1: ENGL 1101 Introduction to English Literature
2011-2020
- ENGL 3044 Body Culture Text
- ENGL 1101 Introduction to English Literature
- ENGL 2042 Icons of Decadence
- ENGL 1101 Introduction to English: Ideas of the Real
- ENGL 3048 Australian Classics: Literature and Film
- ENGL 2049 Contemporary Australian Culture
- ENGL 1022/2022 Academic English
- ENGL 2051 Literature and Society in Victorian Literature
- ENGL 1001 Landmarks in Literature
- ENGL 2002 Gothic Literature
- ENGL 3047 Rhapsody and Revolution: Romanticism and Its Legacies
In 2019 and 2020, I also taught the museum studies major in the Bachelor of Digital Media at The University of South Australia.
| Date | Role | Research Topic | Program | Degree Type | Student Load | Student Name |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 - 2025 | Co-Supervisor | Revising the Verbal Mood: A Study of Epigenetic Revision, Affect, and Artistry in the Works of Willa Cather | Doctor of Philosophy | Doctorate | Full Time | Miss Clare Lesley Charlesworth |
| 2020 - 2024 | Principal Supervisor | Sketching Tom Gill Art, history, and a creative exploration beyond the frame of ST Gill’s utopian visions of colonial South Australia. |
Doctor of Philosophy | Doctorate | Full Time | Ms Jennifer Lorraine Molloy |
| Date | Role | Board name | Institution name | Country |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2016 - ongoing | Board Member | Australasian Victorian Studies Association | The University of Adelaide | Australia |
| Date | Role | Committee | Institution | Country |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 - ongoing | Assistant Treasurer | Merz Housing Cooperative | Merz Housing Ccoperative | Australia |
| 2014 - ongoing | Member | Mary Elizabeth Braddon | Mary Elizabeth Braddon | United Kingdom |
| Date | Role | Editorial Board Name | Institution | Country |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 - ongoing | Associate Editor | Australasian Journal of Victorian Studies | The University of Adelaide | Australia |
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