Dr Amy Burge BA, MA, PhD

• BA (Hons) English and Related Literature (University of York)
• MA (Hons) Women’s Studies (Humanities) (University of York)
• PhD Women’s Studies (University of York)
• Postgraduate Certificate in Academic Practice (University of Edinburgh)

I joined the University of Birmingham in August 2018. Prior to this, I taught at Cardiff University, York St John University, Bishop Grosseteste University, the University of York and the University of Edinburgh, where I also worked in academic development.

My doctoral research (completed in 2012) was undertaken at the University of York, where I was jointly supervised between the Centre for Women’s Studies and the Department of English and Related Literature. 

• Popular Fiction before the Novel (UG)
• The Use of Genre (UG) – module convenor
• Cultures of Popular Literature (PG) – module co-convenor

I am keen to hear from prospective students interested in researching the following areas:

Popular romance studies, especially projects on diversity
Popular and genre fiction
Publishing
Migration and refugee fiction
Muslim women's genre writing
Cross-period and cross-disciplinary projects

Update September 2024: I am accepting new PhD students to begin no earlier than academic year 2025/26.

Find out more - our PhD English Literature  page has information about doctoral research at the University of Birmingham.

My research interests lie in popular fiction (especially romance). I am interested in genre fiction, publishing, women’s writing, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, and migration. 

I am currently working on a project on the 'bonkbuster' with Dr Jodi McAlister (Deakin University). 

I have published research on contemporary women’s historical fiction, sexualisation and women’s advice literature, medieval and modern literary representations of virginity, class and wealth in popular romance fiction, chick lit from the Middle East, imperialism in the medieval romance Emaré, Scottish popular romance in the twentieth century, marriage migration in romance novels, masculinity in Nigerian romance fiction, and migration fiction. 

I have edited special issues on E. M. Hull's early twentieth-century classic novel, The Sheik, multi-disciplinary approaches to critical love studies, and medieval romance, gender and materiality.

My first book, Representing Difference in the Medieval and Modern Orientalist Romance (Palgrave, 2016) is a comparative study of Orientalism in medieval and modern popular romance and compares the representation of erotic relationships across religious and cultural borders in late medieval Orientalist romance (1330-1450) and British and North American post 9/11 romantic fiction.

I was Principal Investigator for the AHRC-funded Muslim Women's Popular Fiction research network (2021-2023). 

I also have an interest in pedagogy and have published research on using arts-based research methods with university colleagues, understanding the development of postgraduates who teach, and supporting postgraduate students who teach. 

• I am on the editorial board for the Journal of Popular Romance Studies and a member of the International Association for the Study of Popular Romance, the Society for Medieval Feminist Scholarship and the Love Research Network.
• I have been a reviewer for The Journal of Masculinity Studies, Routledge and Edinburgh University Press.
• I have presented my research at many international conferences and at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.
• I am a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.