Dr Elspeth Jajdelska

Senior Lecturer

English & Creative Writing

Personal statement

I completed an undergraduate degree at Glasgow University and a PhD in Leeds. I then took worked for three years as a fund manager, followed by 18 months as a lecturer in Poland, including 6 months at the Jagiellonian University. I joined Strathclyde in 2001.

Publications

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Publications

The flow of narrative in the mind unmoored : an account of narrative processing: Jajdelska Elspeth; Philosophical Psychology Vol 32, pp. 560-583 (2019); https://doi.org/10.1080/09515089.2019.1585796
Picture this : a review of research relating to narrative processing by moving image versus language: Jajdelska Elspeth, Anderson Miranda, Butler Christopher, Fabb Nigel, Finnigan Elizabeth, Garwood Ian, Kelly Stephen, Kirk Wendy, Kukkonen Karen, Mullally Sinead, Schwan Stephan; Frontiers in Psychology Vol 10 (2019); https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01161
Narrative performance and the 'Taboo on Causal Inference' : a case study of conceptual remodelling and implicit causation: Jajdelska Elspeth; Narrative Science Reasoning, Representing and Knowing Since 1800 (2022) (2022); https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009004329
Socioeconomic status and varied freedoms in eighteenth-century childhood reading: Jajdelska Elspeth; Mediation and Children's Reading Relationships, Intervention, and Organisation from the Eighteenth Century to the Present (2022) (2022)
Ignorance as a productive force in complex storyworlds : the case of Pilgrim's Progress: Jajdelska Elspeth; Journal for the History of Knowledge Vol 2 (2021); https://doi.org/10.5334/jhk.41
'Obnoxious preoccupation with sex organs' : the ethics and aesthetics of representing sex: Jajdelska Elspeth; Nabokov and the Question of Morality Aesthetics, Metaphysics, and the Ethics of Fiction (2016) (2016); https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-59221-7_12

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Teaching

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Teaching

I teach on the undergraduate BA degree in English literature. As well as core class teaching in first and second year, I have designed and taught options on 'Oral narratives and fairy tales', 'Theories of literature and wellbeing', 'Literature, mind and brain' and 'Soviet Literature.

Research

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Research Interests

I ask abstract questions about literature: why do we enjoy it; why is it meaningful? I use literary, linguistic and historical analysis as well as cognitive approaches to address these questions. My first two books identified changes in the ways people read and interpreted texts between 1650 and 1750 and why those changes happened. I completed a masters in cognitive science with distinction in 2016 and my work since then has focussed on the cognition of fiction.

Professional Activities

Scientific Reports (Journal): Peer reviewer; 2020
Anthem Press (Publisher): Peer reviewer; 2020
Read Write Hear: Recipient; 9/11/2025
Modern Philology (Journal): Peer reviewer; 2020
Peer review for a large EU grant (Event): Peer reviewer; 2018
'Who was Johnson's common reader?': Invited speaker; 19/12/2014

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Projects

A Different World: How the Brain Responds to Fiction: Jajdelska, Elspeth (Principal Investigator); We aim to nd out how readers build ctional worlds. Fiction reading has powerful and mysterious eects on readers (Sullivan; Tamir). We believe that some of these eects can be explained by the process of world building. If so, this will improve public understanding of ction's power and help to reverse current declines in ction reading (Clark).; 01-Jan-2025 - 31-Jan-2027
A study of Jane Austen and 'play' in narrative technique: Jajdelska, Elspeth (Principal Investigator); 01-Jan-2017 - 30-Jan-2023
Stories in Scotland: Jajdelska, Elspeth (Principal Investigator); 02-Jan-2017 - 31-Jan-2019
Stories in Scotland by Word and Screen the neuroscience of narrative: Jajdelska, Elspeth (Principal Investigator); 14-Jan-2015 - 13-Jan-2016
Trainee Teachers’ Perceptions of Poetry and their attitudes to Poetry Teaching: Soltysek, Raymond Ronald (Academic) Smith, Vivienne (Academic) Jajdelska, Elspeth (Academic); The aim of this investigation is to explore student teachers’ attitudes bring to their studies towards poetry at an early stage of their career, before they have had any pedagogical input from course tutors on the topic. The investigation will seek to identify these attitudes and the formative influences on these attitudes.; 31-Jan-2014 - 30-Jan-2015
Group for Renaissance Research Reading: Argondizza, Peter (Academic) Fudge, Erica (Academic) Hope, Jonathan (Academic) Jajdelska, Elspeth (Academic) Thorne, Alison (Academic) Hogarth, Alan (Post Grad Student) Clark, Douglas Iain (Post Grad Student) Veerapen, Steven (Post Grad Student) Froehlich, Heather Gayle (Post Grad Student); Research in Renaissance studies has traditionally been a particular strength of English at the University of Strathclyde, and this is reflected in the meetings of the Group for Renaissance Research Reading. The group is made up of both staff and postgraduate students and meets frequently during term time to engage with issues current in the field. Our meetings take the form of seminar talks, and group-discussions of recent work which engages with broad cultural aspects of the Renaissance.

The expertise of group members covers a variety of areas. These include Renaissance literature; the history of ideas; the history of language; social and political history; cultural history – with interests in visual, musical, linguistic, and intellectual history, as well as digital approaches to the analysis of texts. The group also has links to the Scottish Institute of Northern Renaissance Studies (SINRS) and the Journal of the Northern Renaissance. (http://www.northernrenaissance.org/); 10-Jan-2011 - 10-Jan-2014