My doctoral thesis was 'Self-Reflexivity and Otherness in T.S. Eliot and Geoffrey Hill', completed at Queen's University Belfast.
I taught in the Literature department at QUB from 2006-2017, joining York St John as a lecturer in Liberal Arts in 2018. I work mainly on the Liberal Arts Foundation Year, and also teach sessions on the literature programme here.
I teach mainly on the Liberal Arts Foundation Year, and also on the Literature programme. This is an introductory, inter- and multi-disciplinary programme which has been running since 2018/19. I take responsibility for literature and creative writing teaching/marking/assessment, but my teaching also comprises such disciplines as philosophy, politics, history, religion and ethics, and language/linguistics.
I have also taught on the Creative Writing and Publishing (MA) programmes at YSJ.
In academic year 2024/25, I am teaching on:
- LIB3001M: York in Flux
- LIB3007M: Identity and Otherness: The Self and Society (module lead)
- LIB3008M: Truth and Invention: Culture, Myth and Representation
- LIB3006M: Independent Project
- LIB3004M: Freedom and Justice (module lead)
- LIB3005M: Imagining the Future: Environment, Apocalypse and the Digital Revolution
- LIT7003: Historicizing the Contemporary
- LIT7004: World, Globe, Literature
- LIT4004: Introduction to Literary Studies (2)
- LIT6007: The Experimental Century
I am a poet and literary critic. I have published articles on modern poetry and poetics, often with an emphasis on the relationship between form and politics, on intellectual and historical contexts, and poetry's place in public discourse.
I welcome PhD applications in literature, especially in the areas of modern/contemporary poetry and poetics, modernist literature and its legacies, and contemporary literature and cultural politics.
I have twice been a recipient of Arts Council grants in support of my creative writing.
I am currently supervising:
- Sam Szanto, 'M/Other: How can selves be created and identities formed through the writing of mother poetry?' (Creative Practice PhD, co-supervising with Dr John Challis)
Recent publications
I am a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, and am a mentor and assessor on the HEA accreditation scheme at York St John.
