School of Creative Arts, Film and Media (SCAFM)

I work as Senior Lecturer in the Media Studies department of the University of Portsmouth, with interests in print media and feminism, and particularly in women’s magazines.  Both my teaching and research have an emphasis on critical and cultural theories, and my research and publications explore ways in which creative expression relates to the cultural and social context.

My research interests fall into a number of related areas including women’s writing, women’s cultures, feminism, and media representations of women.  I have a particular research and publication interest in women’s magazines and their cultural contexts.  Magazines, lifestyle television, television drama, novels, short stories and science fiction are all media forms and genres which interest me and have informed my writing.  Recent publications include work on feminism and women’s magazines; modernism, war and May Sinclair; and 1970s British television.  I am presently writing a monograph on women’s magazines, looking at the political and social impact some magazines have had on British women’s history.

Current Research

Books^{[Back to top]}

Forster, L. (In preparation).  Magazine Issues.  This book examines the direct engagement of British magazines with feminism from the early pamphlets of the late 19th century to contemporary e-zines of the 21st. It will be a work of critical analysis as well as recovery. Forgotten magazines, limited circulation magazines, specialist group magazines as well as better-known examples of feminist magazines will form the basis of the discussion.

Publications^{[Back to top]}

Publications since 2008 [IR]

Co-Edited Books^{[Back to top]}

Floyd, J., & Forster, L. (Eds.). (2003). The recipe reader: narratives, contexts, traditions.  Aldershot: Ashgate. ISBN 07546-0864-6.

Book Chapters^{[Back to top]}

Forster, L. (Forthcoming). 1970s television: a self-conscious decade.  In S. Harper & J. Smith (Eds.), British cinema in the 1970s: the boundaries of pleasure (pp. 00-00). Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Forster, L. (2005). ‘Imagism is a state of soul’: Sinclair’s imagist writing and Life and Death of Harriet Frean.  In M. Troy & A. Kunka (Eds.), May Sinclair: moving towards the modern (pp.  99-122). Aldershot: Ashgate.

Forster, L. (2004). Futuristic foodways: the metaphorical meaning of food in science fiction film. In A. Bower (Ed.), Reel food: essays on food and film (pp. 251-265). London: Routledge.

Floyd, J. & Forster, L. (2003). The recipe in its cultural contexts. In J. Floyd & L. Forster (Eds.), The recipe reader: narratives, contexts, traditions (pp. 1-14).  Aldershot: Ashgate.

Forster, L. (2003b). Liberating the recipe: a study of the relationship between food and  feminism in the early 1970s. In J. Floyd & L. Forster (Eds.), The recipe reader: narratives, contexts, traditions (pp. 147-168). Aldershot: Ashgate.
  
Forster, L. (2003a). ‘Nature’s double vitality experiment’: May Sinclair’s interpretation of the New Woman. In A. Heilmann (Ed.), Feminist forerunners: new women and feminism in the early twentieth century (pp. 166-178). London: Pandora Press.