Our research in modern and contemporary literature is rich and diverse, covering the full sweep of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries across the English-speaking world.
Chronologically it begins with work on the classic writers of High Modernism, including Henry James, Ford Madox Ford, Virginia Woolf, Wyndham Lewis and Dorothy Richardson, and comes right up to date with the study of digital culture both as a proliferation of new cultural forms and reading experiences, and as a subject within contemporary literature and the arts. The geographical and cultural range of work is reflected in our research on English and Irish fantasy fiction, early twentieth-century American magazines, reading cultures in Canada, African American literary and visual culture, Black British and British Asian fiction, and South African novels and poetry. As this suggests, much of our work is interdisciplinary. In addition to visual culture, which stands alongside literary culture in our research from modernism to the contemporary, we explore the relationship between modern literature and several other disciplines and fields in our work, including the law, evolutionary biology and the history of science.
Associate Professor in Popular Fiction
My teaching and research interests are in popular fiction, in particular romance, both medieval and modern. My work is intersectional and focuses on gender, ethnicity and sexuality. I’m currently working on a literary history of romantic masculinity and a project exploring Arab and Muslim women’s genre fiction.
Lecturer in Contemporary Literature & Digital Cultures
I teach and research contemporary and twentieth century literature, with particular interest in digital cultures and creative representations of technological change in the modern age.
Associate Professor in Twentieth-Century American Literature
Co-Director of the Centre for the Study of North America
- Twentieth-Century American Literature
- Twentieth-Century American Art
- Transatlantic Studies
- U.S. Cultural Studies
- Material Culture
- Visual Culture
Senior Lecturer in American Literature and Cultures
- American Literature
- American Art
- Realism
- Illustration
- Visual Culture
- Print Culture
Senior Lecturer in Modern Literature
Professor of Twentieth Century Literature
- Modernism
- 1930s Literature
- Twentieth-Century Fiction
- Literature and Ethics
Lecturer in Contemporary Literature and the Digital
- Digital culture
- Literary and recritical theory
- Contemporary literature
- New media, software and videogame studies
- Digital humanities
Reader in English Literature
- Contemporary literature
- Anglophone postcolonial studies
- Race and ethnicity in British culture
- Literary non-fiction
Birmingham Professorial Fellow
I enjoy thinking and writing about British art and literature of all periods, especially in relation to landscape, locality and the presence of the past. I am the author of ‘Romantic Moderns’ and ‘Weatherland: Writers and Artists under English Skies’, and my current projects include work on Virginia Woolf; seasonal ceremony and the marking of time; antiquarianism and local ...
Senior Lecturer in Contemporary Literature and Digital Cultures
- Digital Humanities
- Philosophy of Technology and Science and Technology Studies
- Phenomenology and Postphenomenology
- Critical Theory
- Experimental Writing
- Cognitive Humanities
Associate Professor in Nineteenth Century Literature
- Nineteenth-century prose
- Henry James
- Life-writing
- Textual revision
- Literary editing
- Quotation and allusion
Senior Lecturer in Poetry
- English Poetry
- Romantic-period Writing and its Legacies
- Individualism
- Lyric Voice
Professor of Victorian Literature and Culture
- Nineteenth-century literature
- Literature and science
- Evolution and ecology
- Literature and the visual arts
- Poetic form
Chair in Modern and Contemporary Literature
My research and teaching areas span twentieth- and twenty-first-century writing, with a particular focus on the history and theory of the novel. Most recently, I’ve been working on the politics and poetics of affect in contemporary fiction and life-writing, combining my interests in the history of emotions, disability studies, and narrative medicine.
Professor of English Literature
- Early modern literature
- Romantic literature
- Reception
- Poetry
- Drama
- Manuscript
Professor of English Literature
Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Education)
- Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Women Writers
- Modernism
- The Novel 1880-1940
- Literature and Visual Arts 1840-1940
- The Nineteenth and Twentieth Century City
Professor of English Literature
Head of English Drama and Creative Studies
- Late nineteenth/Early twentieth century literature
- Victorian and Modernist Art Writing/Criticism
- John Ruskin, Walter Pater, Henry James
- Modernism
- Postmodernism
Chair in 20th Century English Literature
I work on 20th century, contemporary and postcolonial literary studies, with particular reference to issues of cultural difference, narrative and power. I am the author and/or editor of numerous books, including Fictions of India: Narrative and Power (2000); Rohinton Mistry (2004); Framing Muslims: Stereotyping and Representation after 9/11 (2011), and Islamophobia and the Novel ...
Lecturer in Early Twentieth-Century English Literature
- Modernism (c.1880–1940)
- Katherine Mansfield, Virginia Woolf, E. M. Forster, D. H. Lawrence
- Print culture
- Media history
Associate Professor in North American Literature
- Late-eighteenth and nineteenth-century American literature
- American Gothic
- Literature of the sea, from the Romantic period to the present day
Senior Lecturer in Contemporary Literature
- 20th and 21st century literature
- Digital cultures, life writing
- Book and media history (including reading communities)
- Transnational modernism and its legacies, the institutionalisation of literary studies
- Literary methodologies
- The culture of celebrity as it interacts with literature
Senior Lecturer in Contemporary Postcolonial Literature
- Anglophone postcolonial writing
- Literature and the modern state
- Decolonization and Cold War cultures
- Literary and cultural institutions
- Postcolonial/global book history
Interdisciplinary Professor of Modern Literature and Culture
Modern and contemporary futurology; modernism; literature and impressionism.
Senior Lecturer in English
- Old English literature
- Modern fantasy literature
- J. R. R. Tolkien
- Medievalism
- Anglo-Saxon manuscripts
Interdisciplinary Chair of Humanities and Human Rights
Professor Lyndsey Stonebridge’s work focuses on twentieth-century and contemporary literature, political theory, and history, Human Rights, and Refugee Studies, drawing on the interdisciplinary connections between literature, history, politics, law, and social policy.
Stonebridge’s early work was concerned with the effects of modern violence on the mind in the twentieth and ...
Associate Professor in Contemporary Literature and Culture
- Contemporary fiction
- The twenty-first century American novel
- The quiet novel
- Contemporary women’s autofiction, memoir, and autobiography
- Social media and online information sharing practices
- Literary fiction, prize culture, and MFA programmes
Professor of Twentieth-Century Literature
- Anglo-American literary modernism, with a focus on Ford Madox Ford and Wyndham Lewis
- Inter-war dystopian writing, in particular the works of Aldous Huxley and George Orwell
- Musico-literary interactions in early twentieth-century modernist fiction, poetry, and criticism
Associate Professor in American Literature and Culture
- African American Studies
- African American visual culture
- Post 1945 American art
- Post 1945 American Literature
- Contemporary Literature