Professor Ros Ballaster
Vice-Principal; Professorial Fellow in English; LGBTQ Tutor
Professor Ros Ballaster
Professor Ros Ballaster
Vice-Principal; Professorial Fellow in English; LGBTQ Tutor
Studying at Mansfield
- Eight new undergraduates join us each year.
- We have five English Language and Literature Fellows and lecturers.
- Explore the richness, range and colour of literature and language in every period, style and genre.
- Take leading roles in a range of literary, media and arts projects.
English studies at Mansfield provide students with opportunities to explore the richness, range and colour of literature and language in its every period, genre and style. The students we take each year in English contribute to the Mansfield environment by engaging in the intellectual, creative and cultural life of the College and University.
They work towards success in their termly studies and in examinations, of course. But they also do much more. They make plays and performances, and lead student societies in literature and the arts. They write and edit student newspapers and magazines. They run arts festivals.
At Mansfield, we foster imaginative, disciplined thinkers from all walks of life. We achieve this by giving our students the tools to analyse the world critically and bring about positive change within it.
"The English course at Oxford specifically really appealed to me. It’s very broad and covers a wide range of time periods and types of literature. However, it also allows for a lot of specialisation and Oxford has a lot of resources for you to pursue your areas of interest. I like Mansfield’s location because it’s off the main road and not as loud as other colleges. However, it’s still central and close enough to my lectures. I also love Mansfield’s small size. It creates a strong sense of community and everyone gets to know everyone."
Your English Language and Literature tutors
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Dr Chris Salamone
Supernumerary Fellow in English and Tutor for Graduates
Dr Chris Salamone
Dr Chris Salamone
Supernumerary Fellow in English and Tutor for Graduates
Fields of interest include Early Modern English drama, reception history, the supernatural in Early Modern literature, miscellanies and commonplace books, Thomas Nashe, Robert Greene, authorial identity and Early Modern cultural afterlives.
Articles & book chapters
Dr Ayoush Lazikani
Stipendiary Lecturer in English
Dr Ayoush Lazikani
Dr Ayoush Lazikani
Stipendiary Lecturer in English
Ayoush Lazikani is a SEDA-accredited tutor, teaching and lecturing in Old English and Middle English. As a researcher, Ayoush specializes in the Global Middle Ages, the history of emotions, and the natural world, and she has published widely in these areas.
In her early work, she focused on devotional writing of the eleventh to thirteenth centuries, particularly for solitary contemplatives in the Christian tradition. She has since undertaken substantial work in comparative literary studies: her research considers English, Arabic, Anglo-Norman, Latin, and Persian texts, among other languages, and in her most recent work she has been writing on medieval ideas about the moon from around the world.
Ayoush’s first book, Cultivating the Heart: Feeling and Emotion in Twelfth- and Thirteenth-Century Religious Texts (University of Wales Press, 2015), studies the languages of feeling—especially the interrelated affections of compassion, love, and sorrow—in texts and church wall paintings.
Her second book, Cry of the Turtledove: Emotion in Christian and Islamic Contemplative Texts, c. 1100-1250 (Palgrave Macmillan, 2021), is situated within the growing emphasis on 'globalization' in medieval studies, and it offers close comparative analyses of affect in medieval Arabic and English contemplative texts. In this book, Ayoush develops a framework for comparative work on affect which she calls ‘avian emotion’. An approach of ‘avian emotion’ invites us to gaze across cultures as well as within them, migrating from one to the other with sensitivity. Just as a bird flies across continents and nations, a comparative study seeks to become a kind of flight, moving across regions while remaining sensitive to the specific rhythms of the surrounding environment.
Ayoush's third book, Moons that Haunt and Bless: Lunar Imaginings in Literature and Art, 700-1600, is forthcoming and tells the story of how medieval people around the world perceived the moon, that ‘supremely prized image for poets’ according to poet Carol Ann Duffy (Duffy 2009: xvii). This book is written for those who may be unfamiliar with the medieval world and its literatures and arts. The sources come from an expansive global range: from Arabic, Chinese, English, French, German, Indian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Latin, Mayan, Norse, Persian, Polynesian, and Welsh traditions, among others. All these sources reveal the complex ways people around the world who lived from c. 700-1600 interpreted and interacted with the moon.
She has also published numerous essays in the Journal of Medieval Religious Cultures, the Journal of Medieval Monastic Studies, Leeds Studies in English, and various edited collections; and she is an Associate Editor for the Palgrave Encyclopedia of Medieval Women's Writing in the Global Middle Ages.
Research interests
Articles & book chapters
Dr Naoise Murphy
Lecturer in English
Dr Naoise Murphy
Dr Naoise Murphy
Lecturer in English
Naoise's research and teaching interests are in queer and trans studies, gender and sexuality, modern and contemporary literature and postcolonial studies. They are currently working on a book for Edinburgh University Press about queerness, gender, space and time in twentieth-century Ireland, focusing on the fiction of Elizabeth Bowen, Kate O’Brien, Molly Keane and Dorothy Macardle. They have a particular interest in queer and radical histories, as well as oral history and site-specific methodologies. They have worked on collaborative and community research projects investigating queer history and colonial legacies in Cambridge, gendered experiences in higher education and radical history in London. They have received their PhD in Multi-disciplinary Gender Studies from the University of Cambridge, Centre for Gender Studies in 2023 and they have taught English at the University of Cambridge and Maynooth University.
Articles & book chapters
Professor Michèle Mendelssohn
Tutorial Fellow in English
Professor Michèle Mendelssohn
Professor Michèle Mendelssohn
Tutorial Fellow in English
Michèle Mendelssohn is Professor of English and American Literature and Tutorial Fellow at Mansfield College, Oxford. She co-convenes the MSt in Victorian Literature. Her research ranges from late 19th century to the present day, and ranges across both sides of the Atlantic Ocean (including American, African American, British and Canadian literatures)
Research interests
Dr Mark Atherton
Lecturer in English
Dr Mark Atherton
Dr Mark Atherton
Lecturer in English
Dr Mark Atherton teaches the English language at Mansfield College, and medieval English literature at Regent's Park College; he also lectures regularly on Old English in the English Faculty.
His present research is on the ‘making of England’ in the tenth century: literature and politics and questions of national and cultural identity, the history of Old English and Anglo-Latin literature. This is the subject of The Making of England: A New History of the Anglo-Saxon World (London: Bloomsbury), now available in paperback, and the monograph The Battle of Maldon: War and Peace in Tenth-Century England, which takes new approaches to the poem and other accounts of the battle, explores themes of religious typology, lordship and the rise of the ‘thegnly’ class, and assesses the people and places that fill the background to this classic work.
A completely revised edition of Mark's Complete Old English is available (Hodder and Stoughton, 2019) with new texts, including extracts from Beowulf and The Battle of Maldon. This book, in the Teach Yourself series, has already appealed to a wide readership: it is aimed at students without other experience of learning a language; it presents Old English passages in the context of their time, teaching vocabulary and grammar as it arises in the texts. The connections with modern English are made explicit; an audio recording of the passages eases the learning process.
Mark's book There and Back Again: J.R.R.Tolkien and the Origins of The Hobbit (London: I.B. Tauris, 2012/2014) covers the literary and linguistic interests of J.R.R. Tolkien and their influence on his fictional writings; he has also contributed a chapter ‘Tolkien and Old English’ to A Tolkien Companion, ed. Stuart Lee.
Mark's earlier research covered the following topics: Henry Sweet’s approaches to language description, the influence of his Anglo-Saxon Reader on twentieth-century poets such as Ezra Pound, anthropology and philology in late nineteenth century, the teaching of modern languages in Victorian England.
Articles & book chapters
Rachel O'Nunain
Stipendiary Lecturer in English and Academic Support Tutor
Rachel O’Nunain
Rachel O’Nunain
Stipendiary Lecturer in English and Academic Support Tutor
Rachel is a DPhil student in the English Literature – funded by the AHRC, the Clarendon Fund, and Mansfield College’s John Hodgson Theatre Research Fellowship. Prior to this, she completed a BA in English Language and Literature and an MSt in English Literature (1830-1914) also at the University of Oxford. Her doctoral research focuses on the emergence of avant-garde theatre movements in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century. She has a broad interest in Anglophone/ European Drama between the nineteenth century and the present day. Topics of particular interest include queer/feminist theatre-making, social problem dramas, verbatim drama, as well as sensation fiction/drama.
Outside her role supporting the teaching of English, she also works as the College’s Tutor for Academic Support. This role involves working with students on a 1:1 basis to help develop their general academic and study skills.
We’re here to help you grow and reach your full potential. At Mansfield we recognise it’s our responsibility to help our students navigate their courses. We’ll support you to make good decisions about the options you select from, among the classes and lectures delivered centrally by the English Faculty.
Our tutors have been at the forefront in developing widening access and the English curriculum in the College and University. Professor Ros Ballaster is Vice-Principal and has also served as Director of Admissions for Mansfield and as 2016-2021 Chair of the English Faculty. Professor Michèle Mendelssohn has been Deputy Director of the Rothermere American Institute. She curated Making History: Christian Cole, Alain Locke and Oscar Wilde at Oxford, an exhibition and website showcasing the university’s trailblazing Black and queer undergraduates.
How to apply
We welcome students of Baccalaureate or A-level in any combination of subjects, as long as they include English literature.
All candidates take the English Literature Aptitude Test (ELAT and submit one example of written work – preferably a piece of analysis or criticism based on their own research or thinking which has formed part of their studies in English.
Candidates called for interview will be given two interviews by tutors in English at Mansfield College – we aim to provide a supportive interview environment so you can show us your true potential and ability.
We’re looking for students who are enthusiastic, who enjoy reading and thinking about what they read, and who are prepared to work hard.
University of Oxford English Language & Literature page
Teaching and learning
Projects and prizes
Life after Mansfield
Useful resources for students
Our Access and Outreach team have put together a range of resources to help you get to know Mansfield, your subject, and your potential Oxford application.
