I was born in Manchester and grew up in a suburb called Northenden. I read English Literature at St John’s College, Cambridge, graduating in 2017. I stayed on at St John’s to complete an MPhil in Criticism and Culture in 2018, and a PhD on levels and play in 2021, supervised by Professor Steven Connor.

Following my PhD, I held various roles. I supervised undergraduates at the University of Cambridge, I was an Associate Lecturer at Anglia Ruskin University, and I was Project Fellow for two ‘Storylistening’ projects led by Professor Sarah Dillon, Dr Claire Craig and Dr Alex Tasker. In 2023, I was awarded a three-year Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship at the University of Oxford to conduct research into British postmigrant literatures and cultures. I also hold a Junior Research Fellowship at St Edmund Hall. I began these positions in October 2023, and my mentor is Professor Santanu Das.

You can read more about my interests, and how they relate to my academic work, in an interview with the Oxford English Faculty here.

Fun Fact

My surname is Violaris because my great grandfather in Cyprus was a violinist. He played music at weddings with his brother, earning him the nickname ‘violaris’, which means violinist in Greek. My grandfather Glafkos adopted Violaris as his surname, and it passed through the generations!