Contact
Biography
Roles in School of English:
Head of Literature, 1500-
Expertise Summary
Restoration and Eighteenth-century poetry and literature, particularly John Dryden, Jonathan Swift, Samuel Johnson. Failure in European literature and art.
I regularly review mss, articles and books in this area for publishers and academic journals. I am an associate editor of the Cambridge Works of Jonathan Swift, and the Wiley Encyclopaedia of British Literature, 1660-1789, and am on the editorial board of the John Clare Society Journal. Since 2009, I have been a consultant to the Digital Miscellanies Index, at the University of Oxford.
As well as editing Swift, I am working on two other long term projects: a book on footnotes in editions of British literature, 1660-1800 (sections on Milton and Shakespeare have already been published), and a wide-ranging, Key-to-all-Mythologies-type study of failure in literature, art and music, from 1700 to the present, ranging from Britain to France, Germany, Russia, and North America.
Teaching Summary
My teaching connects to my research in the later seventeenth, eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. I teach all years of the undergraduate and postgraduate syllabus, from first year to MA. I… read more
Research Summary
My main ongoing research involvement is with the Cambridge edition of the Complete Works of Jonathan Swift, for which I am co-editing two volumes (of Irish writings, and personal writings), and… read more
My teaching connects to my research in the later seventeenth, eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. I teach all years of the undergraduate and postgraduate syllabus, from first year to MA. I convene year 2 & 3 modules on the period 1667-1830.
Undergraduate Modules:
- Year 1: Studying Literature; Regional Writers.
- Year 2: From Talking Horses to Romantic Revolutionaries: Literature 1700-1830; Literature and Popular Culture.
- Year 3: The Self & the World: Literature 1667-1775.
Postgraduate Modules:
- MA in English Literature:
- Poetry
- Textualities
Current Research
My main ongoing research involvement is with the Cambridge edition of the Complete Works of Jonathan Swift, for which I am co-editing two volumes (of Irish writings, and personal writings), and contributing an accompanying Chronology as a reference work.
Past Research
I have published extensively on poetry and literary criticism in the 'long' eighteenth century, from Dryden and Johnson to Joseph Warton, William Cowper, Charles Churchill, and Mark Akenside. I have also published a book about literary failure in the eighteenth century, concerning the unsuccessful careers of writers that were known to Samuel Johnson.
Future Research
As well as my editorial work on Swift, I am also writing a book about the history of the English literary edition from 1660 to 1800, and the emergence of a style of editing and annotation. I am also working on a cultural history of European and American failure.