Beth McAulay

Research Interests: The influence of J. W. Dunne's theory of time (Serialism) throughout twentieth century literature; and relatedly, literary depictions of precognition, oneiric prophecy, and parapsychological phenomena. I'm interested generally in the various time theories developed in philosophy and physics in the early 20th C. 

Secondarily, Carl Jung's advancement of Dunne's theories into his own concept of synchronicity (or 'acausal connecting principle') in the 1950s, and how this development can be transposed onto the broader trajectory of literary modernism to postmodernism. 

My research incorporates a wide selection of twentieth century authors but I'm currently taking particular interest in the works of Vladimir Nabokov. I am supervising undergraduate dissertations on Nabokov. And, in Michaelmas 2026/2027 I am co-teaching the Paper 6 option The American Novel After 1945. 

Supervisor: Michael Whitworth

Papers: 

'J. W. Dunne and the Serial Selves of Joyce's Finnegans Wake' at the British Society for Literature and Science conference at the University of Strathclyde (10th April 2026)

I am an editor for the arts and literature magazine, Nawr, and was previously a staff writer for Poetry Wales. My writing is featured in Seren Books' Cymru & I essay anthology, and in other publications such as the welsh agenda, Cwlwm, and the Oxford Review of Books. I am currently serving as an English-Language Publications panel member for the Books Council of Wales.