Mark Robson

Contact

• workRoom A71 Trent Building
  University Park
  Nottingham
  NG7 2RD
  UK
• work0115 951 5903
• fax0115 951 5924
• mark.robson@nottingham.ac.uk

Expertise Summary

BA (CNAA), MA (Reading), PhD (Leeds) Areas of expertise - Modern literature, including Shakespeare; literary and critical theory; rhetoric and aesthetics; literature, film and visual culture; comparative literature (especially with French) and translation (primarily theoretical rather than practical aspects).

NOTE In the year 2011-12, I will be on research leave for the first semester. During this time I will be Visiting Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities at the University of Edinburgh. If you intend to send me anything by mail, please send me an email first at mark.robson@nottingham.ac.uk to check the best postal address to use.

Areas of Research Supervision I am happy to supervise PhD projects on most areas of early modern or renaissance literature and of literary theory, and have experience of supervision across the full range of modern literature. I have particular interests in aesthetics, Shakespeare, deconstruction, the work of Jacques Derrida and Jacques Ranciere, the politics of tragedy, philosophies of love, and the notion of democratic culture.

Recent and Current Research Students Joe Anderton (Samuel Beckett) [with James Moran] [AHRC funded] Marcus Conley (Literary theory, novels and knowledge) [Passed 2010] Makenzi Crouch (Shakespeare and digital cultures) [with Julie Sanders] Julia Gaze (Contemporary poetry and translation) [with Neal Alexander] Sam Haddow (Historiography and modern drama) [with Joanne Robinson] [Postgraduate Teaching Fellow] Mark Hollingsworth (Victorian Shakespeare) [Passed 2008] [with Josephine Guy] Andrea Macrae (Metafiction, narratology and cognitive linguistics) [Passed 2010] [with Peter Stockwell] [AHRC funded] Jemima Matthews (Early modern London and the Thames) [with Julie Sanders] [AHRC funded] Mark Ryan (Blake and psychology) [with Matt Green] Tim Wheelhouse (Rider Haggard and narratology) [with Maire ni Fhlathuin] [AHRC funded]

Research Summary

Untimely Death: Contemporary Culture in a Time of Suicide. A monograph that will include material on literature, film, psychoanalysis and philosophy, and that will cover topics such as suicide… read more

Selected Publications

• ROBSON, M., 2009. "A Literary Animal": Ranciere, Derrida, and the Literature of Democracy Parallax. 52, 88-101
• ROBSON, M., 2008. The Ethics of Anonymity Modern Language Review. 103, 350-363

• View all publications

Current Research

Untimely Death: Contemporary Culture in a Time of Suicide. A monograph that will include material on literature, film, psychoanalysis and philosophy, and that will cover topics such as suicide bombings and terrorism, love, exemplarity, law, ethics and survival.

Hester Pulter, Poems. A scholarly edition of the poetry of Hester Pulter, a formerly unknown royalist woman poet of the civil wars period, whose manuscript I 'discovered'. This has been completed with the assistance of a grant from the British Academy, and should be published in 2011.

The Analysis of Democratic Cultures Research Group I am the Director of this newly-established interdisciplinary network, which includes colleagues from several schools and departments across the University of Nottingham. For details of the Group's activities, and of how to contact us, please see the webpage at http://democratic-cultures.nottingham.ac.uk.

Past Research

Stephen Greenblatt (Routledge, 2007). A volume for the Routledge Critical Thinkers series on the work of one of the most prominent contemporary literary critics, whose work has largely focused on Shakespeare and the early modern period. Chapters address new historicism and cultural poetics (as ways of reading and of writing), self-fashioning, social energy, resonance and wonder, and imagination.

The Sense of Early Modern Writing: Rhetoric, Poetics, Aesthetics (Manchester University Press, 2006). This monograph pursues, among other things, the relation between the 'early modern' and modernity, tracing the interactions of post-Romantic philosophical aesthetics and early modern rhetoric and poetics. Drawing on critical theory, particularly the work of Jacques Derrida and Paul de Man, I stress the role of aisthesis in reading. The book includes material on eyes, ears, hands, tongues and voices, and discusses William Shakespeare, Thomas More, Philip Sidney, Hester Pulter, Ben Jonson and others.

Jacques Ranciere: Aesthetics, Politics, Philosophy (Paragraph/Edinburgh University Press, 2005). A collection of essays on the work of Ranciere written by thinkers from a range of disciplines and critical perspectives, including a new piece by Jacques Ranciere. The contributors address topics such as politics, aesthetics, education, literature, historiography, community and the end of philosophy.

Language in Theory (co-author, with Peter Stockwell) (Routledge, 2005). A book aimed at students for the Routledge English Language Introductions series. Its aim is to explore areas of critical and literary theory that are of interest to language students, and of language for theory students. It contains strands on gender, 'race', society, performativity, intention, cognition, creativity, figuration and interpretation.

The limits of death: between philosophy and psychoanalysis (editor, with Joanne Morra and Marquard Smith) (Manchester University Press, 2000). A collection of new interdisciplinary essays that covers areas such as philosophy, psychoanalysis, art, literature and music.

Future Research

Figures of Hamlet. Working from the play itself and from its reception in selected periods and media, this will examine the interplay of figuration and tragedy, working towards a conception of tragedy based on notions of singularity, aesthetics, repetition, community and the common rather than the more conventional associations of tragedy with individuality and subjectivity. Touches on film as well as philosophy, literature, visual media and psychoanalysis. This project is especially informed by the work of Jacques Derrida, Jean-Luc Nancy, Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe and Samuel Weber.

• ROBSON, M., 2012. In the Bitter Letter (A Rendition of Othello) Oxford Literary Review. 34(1), (In Press.)
• ROBSON, M., 2011. Film, Fall, Fable (Ranciere, Rossellini, Flaubert, Haneke). In: BOWMAN, P. and STAMP, R., eds., Reading Ranciere: Critical Dissensus London: Continuum. 185-199
• ROBSON, M., 2011. The Ethics of Anonymity [Reprint]. In: WRIGHT STARNER, J. and TRAISTER, B., eds., Anonymity in Early Modern England: What's in a Name? Ashgate. 159-175
• ROBSON, M., 2011. Fear of Falling: DeLillo's Images Interfaces: Image, texte, langage. 31, 55-68
• ROBSON, M., 2011. HUM (-an, -ane, -anity, -anities, -anism, -anise). In: MOUSLEY, A., ed., Towards a New Literary Humanism London: Palgrave. 181-196
• ROBSON, MARK, 2011. General Introduction. In: The History of Suicide in England 1650-1850 1. Pickering and Chatto. vii-xxvi
• ROBSON, M., 2010. New Historicism. In: MICHAEL RYAN, ed., The Encyclopedia of Literary and Cultural Theory II. Literary Theory from 1966 to the present. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. 746-753
• ROBSON, M., 2010. The Question: Hamlet's Life After Life Borrowers and Lenders: The Journal of Shakespeare and Appropriation. 5(1), n.p.
• ROBSON, M., 2010. An empty body, a ghost, a pale incubus: Shakespeare, Lacan and the Future Anterior Shakespeare Yearbook. 19, 55-74
• ROBSON, M., 2010. What is a 'Relevant' Theory?: Translating Derrida's Shakespeare Tropismes. 16, 207-224
• ROBSON, M., 2010. Jonson and Shakespeare. In: SANDERS, J., ed., Ben Jonson in Context Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 57-64
• ROBSON, M., 2009. Oedipal Visuality: Freud, Romanticism, Hamlet Romanticism. 15(1), 54-64
• ROBSON, M., 2009. Day of the Dead [Reprint]. In: , ed., Literature Criticism 1400-1800 168. Detroit, MI: Gale. (In Press.)
• ROBSON, M., 2009. "A Literary Animal": Ranciere, Derrida, and the Literature of Democracy Parallax. 52, 88-101
• ROBSON, M., 2009. Case Studies in Reading II: From Texts to Theory. In: HISCOCK, A. and LONGSTAFFE, S., eds., The Shakespeare Handbook London and New York: Continuum. 93-111 (In Press.)
• ROBSON, M., 2009. In the Living Room: Jacques Derrida's Memory Oxford Literary Review. 31(1), 15-31
• ROBSON, M., 2008. Jacques Ranciere's Aesthetic Communities [Polish translation]. In: , ed., Jacques Ranciere. Dzielenie postrzegalnego. Estetyka i polityka Krakow: Korporacja Ha!art.
• ROBSON, M., 2008. An Other Europe Paragraph. 31(3), 375-388
• ROBSON, M., 2008. The Ethics of Anonymity Modern Language Review. 103, 350-363
• ROBSON, M., 2007. Stephen Greenblatt London: Routledge.
• ROBSON, M., 2006. The sense of early modern writing: rhetoric, poetics, aesthetics Manchester: Manchester University Press.
• ROBSON, M., 2006. Impractical Criticism. In: MARTIN, P.W., ed., English: The Condition of the Subject Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. 168-179
• ROBSON, M. & STOCKWELL, P.J., 2005. Language in Theory London: Routledge.
• ROBSON, M., 2005. Shakespeare's words of the future: promising Richard III Textual Practice. 19(1), 13-30
• ROBSON, M., 2005. Jacques Ranciere's aesthetic communities Paragraph. 28(1), 77-95
• ROBSON, M., 2005. Introduction: Hearing Voices Paragraph. VOL 28(NUMB 1), 1-12
• ROBSON, M., ed., 2005. Jacques Ranciere: Aesthetics, Politics, Philosophy Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
• ROBSON, M., 2005. Reading Hester Pulter Reading Literature Compass. 2(17C 162), 1-12
• ROBSON, M., 2004. The Baby Bomber Journal of Visual Culture. 3(1), 63-76
• ROBSON, M., 2004. Lady Hester Pulter. In: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• ROBSON, M., 2004. Translatio Mori: Ellis Heywood's "Thomas More". In: PINCOMBE, M., ed., Travels and Translations in the Sixteenth Century Aldershot: Ashgate. 73-87
• ROBSON, M., 2003. Defending poetry, or, is there an early modern aesthetic?. In: JOUGHIN, J. and MALPAS, S., eds., The new aestheticism Manchester: Manchester University Press. 119-130
• ROBSON, M., 2001. Looking with ears, hearing with eyes: Shakespeare and the ear of the early modern Early Modern Literary Studies. 7(1),
• ROBSON, M., 2001. Trying to pick a lock with a wet herring: Hamlet, film, and spectres of psychoanalysis EnterText. 1(2), 242-258
• ROBSON, M., 2000. Swansongs: Reading Voice in the Poetry of Lady Hester Pulter English Manuscript Studies 1100-1700. VOL 9, 238-256
• ROBSON, M., MORRA, J. and SMITH, M., eds., 2000. The limits of death: between philosophy and psychoanalysis Manchester: Manchester University Press.
• ROBSON, M., MORRA, J. and SMITH, M., 2000. Editors' foreword. In: ROBSON, M., MORRA, J. and SMITH, M., eds., The limits of death: between philosophy and psychoanalysis, Manchester: Manchester University Press. xi-xiv
• ROBSON, M., 1998. Writing contexts in William Roper's "Life of Thomas More". In: GOULD, W. and STALEY, T.F., eds., Writing the Lives of Writers Basingstoke: MacMillan. 79-89
• ROBSON, M., 1996. Wolfes wyfe Parallax. 3, 95-97
• ROBSON, M., 1996. Day of the Dead Critical Matrix. VOL 10(NUMBER SPI), 93-97