Bradley Osborne

Department: English
Discipline: English

Project Summary

My thesis explores the development of William Golding's idea of nature across both his fiction and non-fiction. I aim to establish connections between his experiments with style, particularly in his descriptions of the natural world, and his engagements with some of the anthropological and scientific theories of his day. His friendship with Professor James Lovelock, who formulated the Gaia hypothesis, is of particular interest to me. My research expands the purview of Golding scholarship beyond the exclusive focus on his views of human nature and his religious beliefs. Special Collections holds unpublished drafts and notebooks from the Golding archive which have never been consulted by any previous full-length study of his work. These materials are essential in tracing the development of Golding's art and ideas.

Supervisory Team

Primary Supervisor: Professor Tim Kendall

Secondary Supervisor: Dr Emily Bernhard Jackson

Wider Research Interests

I have a strong interest in the study of form and content in videogames. In my MA dissertation, I developed a theoretical approach to player-avatar identification and player agency which drew on ideas from queer theory. Moreover, I recently published a study of maps in Final Fantasy VI which looked at the relation between print and digital media. I don't currently write on games, but I remain keenly interested in them.