Dr Stephanie Munro

Professional biography

BA (Hons) Sociology (Lancaster University, 1991) 

MA Psychiatry, Philosophy & Society (University of Sheffield, 1994)

MPhil. English Literature (University of Sheffield, 2002)

PhD Women's Studies (Lancaster University, 2006) 

Postgraduate Certificate in Academic Practice (English Literature subject specialism) (Open University, 2009) 

Fellow of the Higher Education Academy/ Advance HE (2010) 

BA (Hons) English Language and Literature (Open University, 2018)  

Research interests

I am interested in how voyaging has been used as a metaphor in literature and culture since the sixteenth century, including in early modern drama, eighteenth-century satire, folk and fairy tales, Romantic poetry, autobiography and memoir, nineteenth-century novels, and contemporary fiction and film. The current focus of my research is Samuel Taylor Coleridge's The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (1798, 1817) and its relevance in the twenty-first century. To this end I have been reading The Rime in relation to Yann Martel's shipwreck narrative Life of Pi (2001) and considering how these works may help us to address ecological concerns and reimagine our relationship to the environment in a warming world.  

Teaching interests

I currently teach: 

A111: Discovering the Arts and Humanities.

A112: Cultures.

YXM130: Making Your Learning Count.

A233: Telling Stories: the novel and beyond.

My primary subject specialism is English Literature, though I have taught widely in the Arts and Humanities since I started teaching for the Open University in 2007. I conducted research into online learning from a student perspective as part of my Postgraduate Certificate in Academic Practice, and have continuing interests in how best to harness the benefits for students and for tutors of digital resources.