Andrew is a current PhD English student at the University of Strathclyde...

Tell us a little bit about yourself and what originally brought you to Strathclyde...

I’m a Glaswegian from the southside of the city, and have lived there my whole life. I came to Strathclyde back in 2014, where I did my undergrad, and then my MRes in English. I began my PhD in 2022 and am now, thankfully, finishing it up. In total, I’ve been here for over a decade, with some short gaps in between, all the while working at Greggs and Lidl, being a freelance proofreader, and now a co-runner of an Eastern European Film Festival (called Samizdat).

There were no initial plans to go to this university; it wasn’t my first choice when I was leaving school. Yet, I consider myself extremely lucky to have landed at Strathclyde. In fact, I doubt I would be doing a PhD at all, had I not come here in the first place. It was during my undergrad that I met my supervisors, Elspeth Jajdelska and Nigel Fabb (now retired), who introduced me to the world of ‘cognitive literary studies’ and helped develop my passion for the subject area. More broadly, the Department of Humanities helped develop a solid foundation of research skills for me, particularly with its unique approach to English. Its fine balance of conventional and unorthodox courses, featuring canonical and non-canonical texts, has left a strong imprint on me.  

By the time I applied, there was no question that if I was going to be doing a PhD, it would be at Strathclyde.  

What drew you towards your chosen degree?

Before anything else, I have always found myself asking how reading is even accomplished in the first place. It seems that everything else about the meaning and value of literature follows after that. Cognitive science and psychology offer some fairly good, though not necessarily ‘better’, ways of answering this question, compared to other humanities and social science disciplines. Thanks to cognitive-scientific methods, we now know, for example, that when people read fiction, parts of the brain responsible for thinking about other people’s thoughts and feelings in the real world seem to light up, as revealed through functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). This may seem fairly obvious, but the implications of this are profound. It suggests that our encounters with characters and narrators are very much the same as encountering people in the real world, and this speaks to literature’s capacity to enrich our social and affective lives. But there are also some important ways that fiction departs from reality, and this we surprisingly understand less of. This is one reason I was drawn to my degree.

I was drawn to the specific topic of autism and fiction reading because it seemed challenging. But most of all, I was intrigued by the idea that a humanities subject like English could meaningfully shape how marginalised groups like autistic people are viewed in society. Science sometimes needs pulled in the right direction, and literature can serve as a great anchor.   

What specialist knowledge or professional skills did you develop whilst studying the course?

Undoubtedly, an ability to work between disparate fields and find connections between them, on top of the usual skills anyone might acquire during a degree (e.g. in research methods, analytical skills, dissemination, and so on). I also had the opportunity to undertake an internship at the Scottish Government as a social researcher in agriculture, through SGSSS. This was a strange, but nonetheless fortuitous and deeply rewarding, moment in my professional career.

A big realisation was how important other people are for whatever project you’re engaged in. Networking skills are crucial in opening up opportunities, getting advice and, most of all, feeling supported.

What are your hopes for the future? And how do you think your degree will help towards these goals?

Unfortunately, much of academia is in flux right now, and the job market is somewhat precarious. I am still hopeful that something will come up, eventually. But it’s important to realise that a PhD isn’t just useful as a requirement for working as a researcher/teacher at a university. As a student, you will hopefully realise that the skills and experience you acquire are broadly applicable to many other sectors – more so than you might initially think. An ability to work independently and creatively, to communicate with both experts and lay people, and to be self-driven, offer excellent grounding for becoming an ideal candidate.  

Whilst a PhD might not guarantee you a job in academia, it will certainly set you up for lots of interesting, and equally satisfying, career paths.

Tell us a little bit about your research...

My PhD specialises in the intersection between autism, neurodiversity, and fiction. I am keenly interested in how autistic people engage with fiction, and I use literary-cognitive methods to explore that. For a long time now, autistic people have been mostly neglected as a population who can appreciate and engage in depth with complex literary works. This has largely been due to some very unhelpful and stigmatising views about autistic people that emerged from research in the 90s onwards – a couple of examples being that autistic people lack empathy and imagination. The neurodiversity paradigm has rigorously challenged the idea that autistic people and other neurodivergent groups are 'inherently disordered' and in need of 'treatment', viewing them instead as the natural reflection of human cognitive diversity, whilst recognising the disabling effects of a world constructed entirely for neurotypical people.

Working within this paradigm, my research looks at how autistic people’s encounters with fiction can counter these false notions, increasingly contradicted by the voices and perspectives of autistic people, and by scrupulous research elsewhere. A big moment in my research, for example, was realising that some autistic people experience ‘hyper empathy’ when reading. It’s an emotional state wherein an individual can feel very deep, sometimes overwhelming emotions for other people – or in this instance characters.  In turn, by studying neurodivergent reading populations, we learn about the heterogeneous strategies pursued by people with different minds when reading. For instance, some (not all) autistic readers might experience the language of texts in a more direct sensory-perceptual manner, perceiving words and sentences with qualities more akin to music before semantically decoding them.

What is the best part of the research community at Strathclyde?

One of the great benefits of being at Strathclyde – perhaps more than most universities – is its interdisciplinarity. In my view, it is rare to see university departments like Strathclyde’s whose research interests and outputs are so deeply entwined. The humanities department in particular has much to offer in this way, like its culture, communication and creative practice (CCCP) research group, or its many combinations of subjects.

Another element is its student community. I have made some lifelong friends throughout my PhD, who’ve supported me in all sorts of wonderful ways. My advice here is that you go to the Graduate School at the Curran library; it’s an inviting, friendly, and supportive space.   

What advice would you give to prospective students interested in applying for this programme?

Make sure you feel passionate and invested in the topic you want to explore. Doing something you are only partly interested in will make the journey much, much more challenging.