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Ruth Ramsden-Karelse

DPHIL SCHOLAR | MERTON COLLEGE, OXFORD UNIVERSITY / TORCH | 2017–2020

Ruth Ramsden-Karelse is founder and co-convener of the Oxford Queer Studies Network and a DPhil candidate in the English Faculty at the University of Oxford. The inaugural Stuart Hall Doctoral Studentship, in association with Merton College, the Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities and the Stuart Hall Foundation, supports her research on queer femininities in communities formerly classified “Coloured” in the Western Cape of South Africa, from 1950 to the present, with a specific focus on the Kewpie Photographic Collection

Ruth’s writing has appeared in GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies. She is a 2019-2020 Merton College Prize Scholar, and is currently acting as the elected Postgraduate Representative for the Royal Geographical Society’s Space, Sexualities and Queer Research Group. She served on the panel of judges for Miss Gay Western Cape 2018.

Ruth has an MA in Culture and Thought After 1945 and a BA in English and Related Literature, both from The University of York, as well as a Post-Graduate Certificate in Education from Canterbury Christ Church University. Prior to commencing her DPhil, Ruth spent three years teaching English at a comprehensive secondary school in London, where she established student-led discussion and action groups and worked with a borough-wide anti-bullying steering group to promote student welfare.