Profiles
Naomi Milthorpe
Naomi Milthorpe
Senior Lecturer in EnglishCourse Coordinator, Bachelor of Arts
Room 461 , Humanities Building
03 6226 2100 (phone)
Dr Naomi Milthorpe aims to empower her students, encouraging them to see themselves as part of the university’s culture of producing knowledge.
As Senior Lecturer in English, she creates innovative and challenging learning experiences that connect students with the world through literary texts.
“I love working through ideas, theories and concepts in literary studies through my teaching, and seeing students do the same. I’m endlessly surprised by the ideas students have”.
A collaborative, student-centred, and research-driven approach to teaching, underpinned by a dedication to scholarly inquiry and critical pedagogy, led to Dr Milthorpe and her colleagues in the English programme being awarded a Vice Chancellor’s Team Citation for Outstanding Contribution to Student Learning in 2018.
Her research has focused on modernist and modernist-adjacent British literary culture, with a particular focus on satire and materiality.
“I primarily work on writing that is funny, so I’m in the happy position that my research often makes me laugh out loud.”
Dr Milthorpe’s career-long interest in the satirical novels of Evelyn Waugh connects her Honours and PhD dissertations, library fellowships at the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin (“I spent a glorious 6 weeks buried in archival materials by day, listening to country music by night”) and the Huntington Library, California, and her current editorship of a scholarly edition of Waugh’s 1932 satire Black Mischief.
“Working on a satire prompts left-of-centre thinking on the question of what makes for a good, just, sensible, or moral life. Waugh’s Black Mischief is by no means a guide to a good life, but through exposing (and sometimes embodying) cruelty, foolishness, prejudice and hypocrisy Waugh provides an example of how humans should not behave.”
Dr Milthorpe and colleagues in the School of Humanities have recently formed a coalition of researchers investigating various forms of life writing, including biography, oral history, microhistory, history of ideas, memoir, textual scholarship and personal writing.
“Our team is interested in critically examining life-writing in and beyond Tasmania, seeking to extend the consideration of whose lives are worthy of writing, and to understand the ways in which these modes of writing can lead to new types of knowledge.”
At the time of writing, she is also in the early stages of working on a book tracing the cultural history and representation of parties.
“While we typically think of parties as ephemeral, and perhaps frivolous, in fact they’re incredibly important in human life – they mark time, they celebrate relationships and communities, they enable us to mourn and to forget. They’re part of the ritual of human life.”
“These gatherings can also have immense public and historic consequences, making parties, as they change over time and are represented in cultural texts, significant objects in our world.
Naomi Milthorpe is Senior Lecturer in English at the School of Humanities. Her research interests centre on modernist, interwar and mid-century British literary culture, including most particularly the works of Evelyn Waugh. Naomi is currently completing a scholarly edition of Waugh’s 1932 novel Black Mischief, volume 3 of Oxford University Press’s Complete Works of Evelyn Waugh. In 2018 Naomi and her colleagues in the English programme were awarded a Vice Chancellor’s Team Citation for Outstanding Contribution to Student Learning.
Biography
Before joining the University of Tasmania, Naomi was a lecturer at the Australian National University, after completing her PhD in English Literature there in 2009.
Career summary
Qualifications
| Degree | Title of Thesis | University | Country | Awarded |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| PhD | Systems of Order: The Satirical Novels of Evelyn Waugh | Australian National University | Australia | 2009 |
| BA(Hons) | Beasts About to Spring: The Great House in Novels by Evelyn Waugh and Stella Gibbons | Australian National University | Australia | 2004 |
Memberships
Professional practice
- Australian Modernist Studies Network, Executive Committee
- Evelyn Waugh Studies, Editorial Board
- Tasmanian Department of Education Curriculum Learning Area Group (English)
Administrative expertise
Naomi has broad experience in University administration and governance, particularly in relation to learning and teaching. Currently the Head of the Discipline of English, she has served on College and School Learning and Teaching and Academic Integrity committees as well as on University-wide Working Groups related to teaching and learning, staff performance development, curriculum management, and student management systems. She is the Tertiary representative on the Tasmanian Department of Education Curriculum Learning Area Group for English, and has served on several of the Department’s Text Selection Committees. In research, she has led a College Research Theme, provided national and international research peer review and thesis examination, run professional development sessions for postgraduate students, and organised research events.
Teaching
Literary modernism, interwar literature, narrative theory, literary culture
Teaching expertise
Naomi is experienced in teaching at the undergraduate, honours and postgraduate level including curriculum design and delivery; and teaches into all levels of the English program, on topics related to literary modernism, interwar fiction, satire, book history and cultures, and drama. She was the School of Humanities Honours Coordinator in 2019 and led the School of Humanities Honours Review in 2020.
Naomi is available to supervise Honours research projects on literary modernism, interwar literature and literary culture, life writing, book history, the literary archive, and parties in literature.
Teaching responsibility
Naomi coordinates and/or teaches in the following units:
Research Invitations
- Invited speaker, Evelyn Waugh: Reader, Writer, Collector conference, Huntington Library, May 2017.
View more on Dr Naomi Milthorpe in WARP
Expertise
Naomi is motivated by a desire to understand the relationship between literature, history, and culture, whether social, material, or environmental. In researching interwar and modernist literary culture, Naomi seeks to examine the ways in which literary texts and the apparatus of literary history represent, uphold, or challenge dominant economic, political, and affective paradigms. With the School of Humanities’ Writing Lives team, Naomi is interested in critically examining life-writing to understand the ways in which diverse modes of life-writing (biography, oral history, microhistory, history of ideas, memoir, textual scholarship and personal writing) can lead to new types of knowledge.
Collaboration
Naomi has collaborated with colleagues in the Faculty of Education, University of Tasmania, and at the University of Newcastle to investigate the student experience of online learning. She regularly collaborates with colleagues in the English program, most recently with Dr Robbie Moore on a book chapter published in the MLA Approaches to Teaching volume, Teaching Modernist Women’s Writing in English.
Awards
- 2015 Huntington Library Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Fellowship
- 2012 Australian Academy of the Humanities Travelling Fellowship
- 2009 Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center Hobby Family Foundation Fellowship
Current projects
Scholarly edition Black Mischief
Naomi is currently preparing a fully annotated scholarly edition of Evelyn Waugh’s 1932 satiric novel Black Mischief, volume 3 in Oxford University Press’s Complete Works of Evelyn Waugh.
Party
This project explores the cultural history of the party through words, texts, images, and objects; and critically interrogates the party as subject and object. “Party” can be an order, a descriptor, a place, an event, a group. Reading key parties and party objects from history, literature, film and popular culture, this book will consider party genres, histories, and politics, and think about the stuff of parties.
Writing Lives
We are a team of researchers in the School of Humanities that seek to foster cross-disciplinary dialogue about life-writing as a form and genre that crosses history, literary studies, cultural studies, gender studies, and philosophy. There is enormous and exciting potential to create appealing, thoughtful and historically-informed narratives about lives and experiences in our state and beyond, other than those who are already prominent in the established narratives. We aim to write and interpret stories that are accessible to the public and respond to and interpret the lives of people in our state (and beyond) for twenty-first century audiences.
Fields of Research
- British and Irish literature (470504)
- Literary studies (470599)
- Teacher education and professional development of educators (390307)
- English and literacy curriculum and pedagogy (excl. LOTE, ESL and TESOL) (390104)
- Other literatures in English (470526)
- Educational technology and computing (390405)
- Higher education (390303)
- North American literature (470523)
- Australian history (430302)
- Other education (399999)
- British history (430304)
- Health promotion (420603)
- Ethical theory (500306)
- Education assessment and evaluation (390402)
Research Objectives
- Literature (130203)
- Teacher and instructor development (160303)
- Other education and training (169999)
- Pedagogy (160302)
- Understanding Australia's past (130703)
- Expanding knowledge in creative arts and writing studies (280122)
- Learner and learning (160199)
- Expanding knowledge in language, communication and culture (280116)
- Understanding Europe's past (130704)
- Expanding knowledge in philosophy and religious studies (280119)
- Health education and promotion (200203)
- Other health (209999)
Publications
Naomi is the author of Evelyn Waugh’s Satire: Texts and Contexts (Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2016) and the editor of the scholarly collection The Poetics and Politics of Gardening in Hard Times (Lexington, 2019). She edited a special issue of Papers on Language and Literature on the modernist archive (2019).
Total publications
40
Highlighted publications
(2 outputs)| Year | Type | Citation | Altmetrics |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | Book | Milthorpe N, 'The Poetics and Politics of Gardening in Hard Times', Lextington Books, Lanham, pp. 144. ISBN 9781498570206 (2019) [Edited Book] | |
| 2016 | Book | Milthorpe N, 'Evelyn Waugh's Satire: Texts and Contexts', Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, United States, pp. 197. ISBN 978-1611478747 (2016) [Authored Research Book] |
Journal Article
(20 outputs)| Year | Citation | Altmetrics |
|---|---|---|
| 2021 | Hopwood B, Dyment J, Downing J, Stone C, Muir T, et al., 'Keeping the party in full swing: findings on online student engagement with teacher education students', Journal of Continuing Higher Education pp. 1-20. ISSN 0737-7363 (2021) [Refereed Article] DOI: 10.1080/07377363.2021.1966922 [eCite] [Details] Citations: Scopus - 2Web of Science - 2 Co-authors: Hopwood B; Downing J; Muir T; Freeman E | |
| 2020 | Dyment J, Stone C, Milthorpe N, 'Beyond busy work: rethinking the measurement of online student engagement', Higher Education Research and Development, 39, (7) pp. 1440-1453. ISSN 0729-4360 (2020) [Refereed Article] DOI: 10.1080/07294360.2020.1732879 [eCite] [Details] Citations: Scopus - 22Web of Science - 20 | |
| 2019 | Milthorpe N, Murphy E, 'Reading the party: festivity as waste in Evelyn Waugh's 1930s fiction', Journal of Festive Studies, 1, (1) pp. 36-51. ISSN 2641-9939 (2019) [Refereed Article] DOI: 10.33823/jfs.2019.1.1.20 [eCite] [Details] Co-authors: Murphy E | |
| 2019 | Milthorpe NE, 'Archives, authority, aura: modernism's archival turn', 55, (1) ISSN 0031-1294 (2019) [Edited Journal] Citations: Scopus - 3 | |
| 2019 | Muir T, Milthorpe N, Stone C, Dyment J, Freeman E, et al., 'Chronicling engagement: students' experience of online learning over time', Distance Education, 40, (2) pp. 262-277. ISSN 0158-7919 (2019) [Refereed Article] DOI: 10.1080/01587919.2019.1600367 [eCite] [Details] Citations: Scopus - 62Web of Science - 50 Co-authors: Muir T; Stone C; Dyment J; Freeman E; Hopwood B | |
| 2019 | Stone C, Freeman E, Dyment J, Muir T, Milthorpe N, 'Equal or equitable? The role of flexibility within online education', Australian and International Journal of Rural Education, 29, (2) pp. 26-40. ISSN 1036-0026 (2019) [Refereed Article] Co-authors: Freeman E; Dyment J; Muir T | |
| 2018 | Milthorpe N, Clarke R, Fletcher L, Moore R, Stark H, 'Blended English: Technology-enhanced teaching and learning in English literary studies', Arts and Humanities in Higher Education, 17, (3) pp. 345-365. ISSN 1474-0222 (2018) [Refereed Article] DOI: 10.1177/1474022217722140 [eCite] [Details] Citations: Scopus - 7Web of Science - 3 Co-authors: Clarke R; Fletcher L; Moore R; Stark H | |
| 2017 | Milthorpe M, 'The materials of which I am made: Evelyn Waugh and book production', Script & Print, 41, (4) pp. 201-213. ISSN 1834-9013 (2017) [Refereed Article] | |
| 2017 | Milthorpe NE, 'Things and nothings: Henry Green and the late modernist banal', Novel: A Forum on Fiction, 50, (1) pp. 97-111. ISSN 1945-8509 (2017) [Refereed Article] | |
| 2016 | Fletcher L, Clarke R, Crane R, Gaby R, Milthorpe N, et al., 'The teaching of English in Tasmania: building links between Senior Secondary and Tertiary teachers', English in Australia, 51, (1) pp. 25-33. ISSN 0155-2147 (2016) [Refereed Article] Citations: Web of Science - 2 Co-authors: Fletcher L; Clarke R; Crane R; Gaby R; Stark H | |
| 2016 | Milthorpe N, 'Interview with Sara 'Sue' Hodson, The Huntington Library', Evelyn Waugh Studies, 47, (1) pp. 2-9. ISSN 1058-8272 (2016) [Non Refereed Article] | |
| 2016 | Milthorpe N, 'A Secret House: Evelyn Waugh's Book Collection', The Space Between Literature and Culture 1914-1945, 12, (1-6) pp. 1-20. ISSN 1551-9309 (2016) [Refereed Article] | |
| 2016 | Salisbury JE, Milthorpe N, ''The borderland between life and death': The spatial politics of illness in The Years', Virginia Woolf Miscellany, 89/90, (Spring/Fall) pp. 61-64. ISSN 0736-251X (2016) [Refereed Article] Co-authors: Salisbury JE | |
| 2015 | Milthorpe NE, 'Heavy jokes: Festive unpleasure in the interwar novel', Journal of Modern Literature, 38, (3) pp. 71-85. ISSN 0022-281X (2015) [Refereed Article] DOI: 10.2979/jmodelite.38.3.71 [eCite] [Details] Citations: Web of Science - 1 | |
| 2015 | Milthorpe NE, Wilson JH, 'Trying to Excite the Pornophiles: Evelyn Waugh and Candy', Evelyn Waugh Studies, 46, (1) pp. 3-8. ISSN 1058-8272 (2015) [Refereed Article] | |
| 2014 | Milthorpe NE, ''Too, too shaming': Evelyn Waugh's Vile Bodies', Affirmations: of the modern, 1, (2) pp. 75-94. ISSN 2202-9885 (2014) [Refereed Article] | |
| 2014 | Milthorpe NE, 'First Year English at UTAS: Interview with Ellyn Carter, the 2013 Winner of the Tate Prize in Excellence in English Learning', EduTATE, June pp. 20-21. (2014) [Professional, Non Refereed Article] | |
| 2013 | Milthorpe Naomi, 'The Evelyn Waugh Legacy Library', Evelyn Waugh Newsletter and Studies, 43, (3) pp. 1-5. ISSN 1058-8272 (2013) [Refereed Article] | |
| 2011 | Milthorpe NE, 'Evelyn Waugh His Book', Script and Print: bulletin of the Bibliographical Society of Australia and New Zealand, 35, (4) pp. 220-224. ISSN 1834-9013 (2011) [Refereed Article] | |
| 2011 | Milthorpe NE, 'The Rake's Regress: Evelyn Waugh's return to satire in 'Basil Seal Rides Again'', Papers on Language and Literature: a journal for scholars and critics of language and literature, 47, (4) pp. 430-442. ISSN 0031-1294 (2011) [Refereed Article] Citations: Scopus - 1Web of Science - 1 |
Book
(2 outputs)| Year | Citation | Altmetrics |
|---|---|---|
| 2019 | Milthorpe N, 'The Poetics and Politics of Gardening in Hard Times', Lextington Books, Lanham, pp. 144. ISBN 9781498570206 (2019) [Edited Book] | |
| 2016 | Milthorpe N, 'Evelyn Waugh's Satire: Texts and Contexts', Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, United States, pp. 197. ISBN 978-1611478747 (2016) [Authored Research Book] |
Chapter in Book
(4 outputs)| Year | Citation | Altmetrics |
|---|---|---|
| 2021 | Milthorpe N, Moore R, 'Embracing Modernist Difficulty with Short Fiction by Women Writers', Teaching Modernist Women's Writing in English, MLA, J Utell (ed), USA, pp. 1-11. ISBN 9781603294850 (2021) [Research Book Chapter] Co-authors: Moore R | |
| 2019 | Milthorpe N, 'Digging up England: Subverting Austerity in Beverley Nichols's Merry Hall', The Poetics and Politics of Gardening in Hard Times, Lexington Books, N Milthorpe (ed), Lanham, pp. 33-52. ISBN 9781498570206 (2019) [Research Book Chapter] | |
| 2019 | Milthorpe N, 'Austerity Gardens: The Poetics and Politics of Gardening in Hard Times', The Poetics and Politics of Gardening in Hard Times, Lexington Books, N Milthorpe (ed), Lanham, pp. 1-18. ISBN 9781498570206 (2019) [Research Book Chapter] | |
| 2015 | Milthorpe NE, 'The Twilight of Language': The Young Evelyn Waugh on 'Catherine' Mansfield', Katherine Mansfield and Literary Influence, Edinburgh University Press, Ailwood, S and Harvey, M (ed), Edinburgh, pp. 21-34. ISBN 9780748694419 (2015) [Research Book Chapter] |
Review
(3 outputs)| Year | Citation | Altmetrics |
|---|---|---|
| 2020 | Milthorpe N, 'Book Review: A History of 1930s British Literature', The Space Between: Literature and Culture 1914-1945, 16 pp. 1-6. (2020) [Review Single Work] | |
| 2016 | Milthorpe N, 'DeCoste, D. Marcel. The Vocation of Evelyn Waught: Faith and Art in the Post -War Fiction. Farnham; Ashagte 2015. 196p', Papers on Language and Literature, 52, (4) pp. 374-379. ISSN 0031-1294 (2016) [Review Single Work] | |
| 2015 | Milthorpe NE, 'Review: The Problem with Pleasure: Modernism and its Discontents, by Laura Frost', Journal of Popular Romance Studies, 5, (1) ISSN 2159-4473 (2015) [Review Single Work] |
Major Creative Work
(1 outputs)| Year | Citation | Altmetrics |
|---|---|---|
| 2019 | Milthorpe M, Clarke R, Moore R, Jones J, 'Digital English', University of Tasmania and the English Teachers Association of Western Australia (2019) [Other Exhibition] Co-authors: Clarke R; Moore R |
Entry
(1 outputs)| Year | Citation | Altmetrics |
|---|---|---|
| 2019 | Milthorpe N, 'Waugh, Evelyn (1903-1966)', The Routledge Encyclopedia of Modernism, S Ross (ed), Abingdon (2019) [Entry] |
Other Public Output
(9 outputs)| Year | Citation | Altmetrics |
|---|---|---|
| 2022 | Milthorpe N, '100th Anniversary of Ulysses, Interview with Robbie Moore', ABC Radio Hobart, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Hobart, Australia, 15 June 2022 (2022) [Media Interview] | |
| 2022 | Milthorpe N, ''Review of Sylvia Townsend Warner, the Corner that Held Them', Interview with ABC Radio', ABC Radio Hobart, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Hobart Tasmania, 28 June 2022 (2022) [Media Interview] | |
| 2022 | Milthorpe N, 'Sylvia Townsend Warner, Interview with ABC Radio', ABC Radio Hobart, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Hobart, Australia, 28 June 2022 (2022) [Media Interview] | |
| 2022 | Milthorpe N, 'Ninety years on, what can we learn from reading Evelyn Waugh's troubling satire Black Mischief?', Online Article, The Conversation, United Kingdom, 13 October 2022, pp. 1-6. (2022) [Magazine Article] | |
| 2021 | Milthorpe E, Murphy E, 'Sick Party! The party as site of contagion in Edgar Allan Poe, Evelyn Waugh, and Ling Ma', JSTOR Daily, United States (2021) [Magazine Article] Co-authors: Murphy E | |
| 2020 | Milthorpe N, 'Only Connect', The Modernist Review, The British Association of Modernist Studies, UK (2020) [Magazine Article] | |
| 2019 | Milthorpe N, Moore R, Murphy E, 'Modernism-Adjacent', British Association for Modernist Studies, United Kingdom, 15, pp. 1-9. (2019) [Magazine Article] Co-authors: Moore R; Murphy E | |
| 2016 | Milthorpe N, 'Manuscripts as Memorials', Waugh and Words, University of Leicester, United Kingdom, 22 Feb, pp. 1-2. (2016) [Magazine Article] | |
| 2016 | Milthorpe N, 'Evelyn Waugh, Cynic?', Waugh and Words, University of Leicester, United Kingdom, 27 Jan, pp. 1-2. (2016) [Magazine Article] |
Grants & Funding
Naomi has held funded research fellowships awarded by the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center at the University of Texas at Austin (2009), the Australian Academy of the Humanities (2012), and the Huntington Library, California (2015).
Funding Summary
Number of grants
2
Total funding
Projects
- Description
- As the growth in online higher education continues at UTAS and beyond, there are a number of important and timely questions about the ways online students engage with learning that have profound relevance to our College. This Hothouse application builds on existing research in the School of Education (SOE) that explores the learning experiences of online initial teacher education students. A systematic literature search (of 457 A1 articles) revealed that the majority of research on student experiences of online learning examines their experiences of a single technology (e.g., webconference/ facebook/ digital gaming) and is often captured at a single time point (e.g., end of semester via interview or exit survey). This review has revealed important 'gaps' in the research literature, namely a need to: 1) interpret student experience more holistically across multiple units of study and 2) capture student voice over time.This Hothouse project will: collect online student-generated data (the 'Student View') collected periodically throughout semester; identify how, when, and why students engage with online learning in their units; compare engagement among units; and analyse patterns of engagement, for fully online units and blended delivery units.This project aligns with a number of other UTAS projects researching online higher education. The project's pioneering methodology will enable new modes of knowledge generation, increase our understanding of the student experience, improve student outcomes and retention, and support CALE's uptake of the UTAS Technology Enhanced Learning and Teaching White Paper, the UTAS Blended Learning Model and the UTAS Strategy on Open Educational Practice. For example, the project can specifically investigate whether or not our units consistently meet element 3 of the White Paper, mandating purposefully designed high impact learning experiences that enable them to achieve the learning outcomes of the unit and course.
- Funding
- University of Tasmania ($15,613)
- Scheme
- Grant - CALE Hothouse Alignment Scheme
- Administered By
- University of Tasmania
- Research Team
- Dyment JE; Muir T; Downing JJ; Milthorpe NE; Freeman EM
- Year
- 2018
- Description
- Using two recently acquired Huntington collections, Evelyn Waugh in the Library aims towards a history, genealogy, and narrative of Waugh in the library, whether that library space is his own private library, the public libraries of which he was a member, and libraries he visited. The project seeks to explore the ways in which Waugh himself has been made the subject of libraries and collections, by examining the work of individual and institutional collectors.
- Funding
- The Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens ($8,630)
- Scheme
- Huntington Fellowships
- Administered By
- University of Tasmania
- Research Team
- Milthorpe NE
- Year
- 2015
Research Supervision
Naomi has experience supervising projects on interwar and modernist literature, drama, and creative writing. She is currently available to supervise projects on 20th century and contemporary literary culture and literary modernism.
Current
5
Completed
3
Current
| Degree | Title | Commenced |
|---|---|---|
| PhD | Stoppard, Wittgenstein, and the Philosophy of Ethics: The Juggler on the Radio | 2020 |
| PhD | Scissors and Matches: A Creative Work based on the life of convict and entrepreneur Maria Lord | 2021 |
| PhD | Booktown Island: Literary Tourism, Regional Identity, and Tasmania's Bookish Third Places | 2021 |
| PhD | A MAJOR PAIN IN THE ARSE: A creative work exploring the life of Tasmanian broadcaster Sue Becker and the ethics of appropriation in fiction | 2023 |
| PhD | Sandwhyte & Kettleblacke: A Two Headed Monsterpiece | 2023 |
Completed
| Degree | Title | Completed |
|---|---|---|
| PhD | A Scholarly Edition of Thomas Heywood's 1 The Iron Age Candidate: Kurt Richard Temple | 2021 |
| Masters | Inland by Sea! The mystery of emotion and creative praxis Candidate: Victoria Genevieve Reeve | 2021 |
| PhD | Parties and the Comic Novel in Interwar Britain Candidate: Eliza Jo Murphy | 2020 |