Under Construction @ Keele 2016 Volume 2 Issue 1 | Page 68

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KIRSTY GREENWOOD is a PhD candidate at Keele University. Her thesis explores
local state and philanthropic semi-penal responses to ‘deviant’ women in Liverpool
between 1809 and 1967. Her imminent publications include two edited book chapters
on semi-penal institutions and carceral regimes of female discipline in Liverpool
Female Penitentiary (1809-1921). Her research interests include both historical and
contemporary punishment of women and gender-specific penal regimes.
CHITRA JAYATHILAKE studied in Sri Lanka – at the University of Sri
Jayewardenepura (USJP), the Postgraduate Institute of English of the Open
University, and the University of Kelaniya – where she obtained a BA in English, an
MA in Teaching English as a Second Language and an MA in Linguistics
respectively. She has been working at the Department of English of her alma mater
since 2000 as a lecturer. Being awarded a scholarship, she moved on to Keele
University (UK) in 2012 and completed a PhD in English Literature in 2015. Entitled
'Biopolitics and postcolonial theatre’, the PhD thesis is a comparative study of
Anglophone plays from South Africa, India and Sri Lanka. Following four years of
study-leave, Chitra recently resumed duties at the USJP and is currently a Faculty
Member of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences.
AMY LOUISE JONES is currently in the final year of a Phd in the Sociology
Department at Keele. She is particularly interested in sociological theory, specifically
theories which analyse and explicate differential ownership of power and knowledge
and the influence of discourse and the outcomes of control. Her main research
examines the effects of neoliberalism upon the economic system, society and human
bodies since the late 1970s, drawing on Foucault’s multifaceted and complex
theoretical paradigms, notably his conception of Biopolitic, and the abnormal. Amy’s
PhD project focuses on an often marginalised cohort; deprived older people. To this
end, she conducted an ethnographic study in Meir, Stoke-on-Trent in 2014, focusing
on human subjectivity and the requisites of neoliberalism (work and consumption).
This fieldwork unearthed an array of fascinating findings which serve as the
foundation for her doctoral studies.