Oison McManus

I’m Oisín, a second-year DPhil working on nineteenth-century Arctic Gothic literature. My research examines the literary representations of polar travel during a period in which the Admiralty was actively pursuing a Northwest Passage and the Arctic was to the forefront of the British public imaginary. Most recently, I have been studying how Arctic explorers turn to Gothic literature to represent their Arctic travails, following the publication of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. More broadly, I am interested in travel and expedition writing, nature writing, and the environmental humanities.

I grew up in the countryside about an hour outside of Dublin and completed my BA in English at Trinity College Dublin, before coming to Oxford to read for the MSt in English and American Studies. I then spent several years working in science policy in the Irish civil service, covering everything from astrophysics to quantum computing – a far cry from the archives! I decided to re-immerse in literary studies by completing an MLitt at the University of St Andrews, before returning to Oxford as a DPhil student.

I first became interested in the outdoors on hillwalking trips to the Wicklow Mountains. Since then, my interest in hiking has taken me from the Cairngorms to the Carpathians. I look forward to contributing to the team as one of the expedition historians.