Sarah Davison

Contact

• workRoom A38 Trent
  University Park
  Nottingham
  NG7 2RD
  UK
• work0115 846 7822
• fax0115 951 5924
• s.davison@nottingham.ac.uk

Expertise Summary

BA (Oxon), MA (London), DPHIL (Oxon) Areas of expertise: twentieth-century literature, modernism, James Joyce, modernist poetry, genetic criticism.

Undergraduate Teaching: I contribute to the teaching of a wide range of literature modules at Nottingham, including Studying Modern Literature, Invention and Tradition and Twentieth-Century Literature. At level 3 I teach two specialist modules: Poetry in the Age of Modernism and James Joyce: Revolutions of the Word.

Postgraduate Teaching: I convene Modernism: Inside and Outside, and contribute to the teaching of What is a Text? and Research Methods in Literature and Drama.

Research Summary

I am presently writing Modernist Literatures: A Reader's Guide to Essential Criticism for Palgrave Macmillan. This project builds on my wide interests in modernist fiction and poetry.

I have a particular enthusiasm for comic literature. My doctoral thesis (2009) was the first study to show the defining role played by parody in the creation of literary modernism. Focusing particularly on Ezra Pound, T.S. Eliot, James Joyce and Virginia Woolf, it examines how parody informed the modernists' experiments in style, form and satire, drawing on a wealth of primary material, including unpublished juvenilia, holograph drafts and comic material only previously treated anecdotally. I am working to expand the thesis into a monograph, Parody and Modernist Literature.

A major theoretical approach of my present research is genetic criticism: the comparative study of different stages in the production of texts. In February 2011 I was awarded British Academy funding for 'Intertextual Joyce', a two-year project investigating the genesis of the 'Oxen of the Sun' chapter of Ulysses.

I would be delighted to hear from students and researchers with an interest in modernism or genetic criticism.

Recent Publications

• DAVISON, S., 2011. Max Beerbohm's Altered Books. Textual Cultures. 6(1), 48-75.
• DAVISON, S., 2011. For the Love of Molly. Review: Karen R. Lawrence, 'Who's Afraid of James Joyce?' (University of Florida Press, 2010); Michael Groden, 'Ulysses in Focus' (University Press of Florida, 2010). Times Literary Supplement (4 February), 7.
• DAVISON, S., 2010. Review: Brian Cosgrove, 'James Joyce’s Negations: Irony, Indeterminacy and Nihilism in Ulysses and Other Writings'. Review of English Studies. 61(252), 834-836.
• DAVISON, S., 2010. Review: Peter Brooker and Andrew Thacker (eds), 'The Oxford Critical and Cultural History of Modernist Magazines. Volume 1. Britain and Ireland.' Keywords: A Journal of Cultural Materialism. 8, 134-137.

• View all publications

• DAVISON, S., 2011. Max Beerbohm's Altered Books. Textual Cultures. 6(1), 48-75.
• DAVISON, S., 2011. For the Love of Molly. Review: Karen R. Lawrence, 'Who's Afraid of James Joyce?' (University of Florida Press, 2010); Michael Groden, 'Ulysses in Focus' (University Press of Florida, 2010). Times Literary Supplement (4 February), 7.
• DAVISON, S., 2010. Review: Brian Cosgrove, 'James Joyce’s Negations: Irony, Indeterminacy and Nihilism in Ulysses and Other Writings'. Review of English Studies. 61(252), 834-836.
• DAVISON, S., 2010. Review: Peter Brooker and Andrew Thacker (eds), 'The Oxford Critical and Cultural History of Modernist Magazines. Volume 1. Britain and Ireland.' Keywords: A Journal of Cultural Materialism. 8, 134-137.
• DAVISON, S., 2009. Ezra Pound's Appreciation of Edmund Waller: A New Source for 'Hugh Selwyn Mauberley'. Review of English Studies. (In Press.)
• DAVISON, S., 2009. 'Atmosphere of parody': Ezra Pound and Imagism. In: MORLEY, CATHERINE and GOODY, ALEX., eds., American Modernism: Cultural Transactions, Cambridge Scholars Press. (In Press.)
• DAVISON, S., 2009. Joyce’s Incorporation of Literary Sources in ‘Oxen of the Sun’. Genetic Joyce Studies.
• DAVISON, S., 2008. Family Romance in 'Wise Children'. The English Review. 18(4), 7-10.
• DAVISON, S., 2008. 'Penultimate Poetry': Richard Aldington's Parodies of Ezra Pound. In: KEMPTON, D., ed., Locations and Dislocations: Proceedings of the Fourth International Richard Aldington Conference Gregau Press. 85-92.
• DAVISON, S., 2007. Review: Richard Dyer, 'Pastiche' (Routledge, 2006), Times Literary Supplement (26 October), 28.
• DAVISON, S., 2006. Sir Max Beerbohm. The Literary Encyclopedia.
• DAVISON, S., 2006. Catching Mrs Brown: Max Beerbohm's Influence on Virginia Woolf's ‘Mr. Bennett and Mrs. Brown’. Notes and Queries. 53(3), 353-355.
• DAVISON, S., 2006. Review: Michael Arditti, 'A Sea Change' (Maia Books, 2006). Times Literary Supplement (28 September), 21.
• DAVISON, S., 2006. Review: Kunal Basu, 'Racists' (Weidenfeld, 2006). Times Literary Supplement (11 January), 19.
• DAVISON, S., 2003. Susan K. Harris, 'The Cultural Work of the Late Nineteenth-Century Hostess' (Palgrave Macmillan, 2002) Times Literary Supplement (25 April), 30.
• DAVISON, S., 2003. Review: Janet Davy, 'English Correspondence' (Chatto and Windus, 2003). Times Literary Supplement (7 February), 21.