English staff at Lincoln are currently undertaking research that spans six
centuries and three continents, and are also highly productive in the field of
creative writing. There are particular strengths in twenty-first century
writing, nineteenth-century studies, and drama. Current research includes, in
twenty-first century writing, work on John Lanchester, Caryl Churchill, David
Peace, American studies, film studies, and adaptation; in nineteenth-century
studies, work on Regency memoirs, sensation novels, and women’s rewritings of
Christian narratives; and in drama, work on utopian theatre, early modern
university drama, and Victorian plays. Details of individual staff interests are
given below. Further information can be found under 'English Staff' to the right
of this page.
Dr Siân Adiseshiah
Siân’s research interests are primarily in
modern and contemporary British theatre, 21st century theatre and cultural
contexts, utopian studies and gender studies. She is particularly interested
in contemporary political theatre, dramatic representations of the break up of
the USSR, and the relationship between utopianism and theatre. She is
co-organising (with Rupert Hildyard) the 'What Happens Now: 21st Century Writing
in English - the first decade' conference (9-12 July 2010) which is taking place
at the University of Lincoln. Her first book was published last year, Churchill's
Socialism: Political Resistance in the Plays of Caryl Churchill, Cambridge
Scholars Publishing, 2009.
Michael Blackburn
Michael is a poet, publisher and part-time lecturer. His previous poetry titles
include The Prophecy of Christos (Jackson’s Arm) and The Ascending Boy (Flambard
Press) plus various hypertext works, the most recent being Portrait of the
Artist as a Cyborg. Current projects include two book-length collections: Where
Gravity Begins (examination of the spirit of place, using the geography and
history of Lincolnshire as the core material) and Big on the Hawkesbury (based
on the Hawkesbury River in New South Wales). He is also looking for publishers
for two just-completed collections: Twisted Fish and The Days, How They Pass.
Dr Amy Culley
Amy’s research interests are in the literature and culture of the long
eighteenth century and Romantic period, with a particular emphasis on women’s
writing. Her PhD research explored personal and social identity in
eighteenth-century life writing, including spiritual autobiographies,
courtesans’ memoirs, and personal accounts of the French Revolution. This
research has recently developed into an examination of memoirs and diaries
surrounding the Regency court, exploring the status of court memoirs as history,
conceptions of privacy, and the use of fictional modes in life writing.
John Dixon
John is currently interested in the hard boiled detective fiction of Walter
Mosely, Robert Crais, and Janet Ivanovich. His research is centered on the
implications of the ‘doubling’ of the central crime fighter as a response to the
socio-political and moral problems of agency, which include issues of ethnicity
and gender. John’s research interests also encompass issues of post ethnicity
and the representation of blue collar masculinity in popular fiction, and in
particular the mythic importance of the Westering experience to national
identity and the continuing deployment of this primitive pastoral myth in the
representations of the wilderness in the 21st century.
Dr Laurie Garrison
Laurie’s interdisciplinary research engages with various topics in the fields of
Romantic and Victorian studies including science, sexuality, exploration
narratives, theatre and visual culture. Major projects of the moment include a
monograph titled Science, Sexuality and Sensation Novels: Pleasures of the
Senses and the general editing of an innovative collection of previously
unpublished Victorian plays. Future work will deal with sexuality in arctic
exploration narrative as well as the investigation of the Leicester Square
Panorama as a venue for disseminating results of British imperial endeavours.
Mike Gaughan
Mike’s key areas of interest are in American and European Modernism between 1909
and 1939 and contemporary Literary and Film Theory. Of special import here are
the theoretical positions set out by the Soviet psychologist and semiotician Lev
Semenovich Vygotsky and the work of Mikhail Bakhtin and his immediate circle.
Mike is currently researching the life and work of the American novelist, poet,
playwright, journalist and illustrator Djuna Barnes (1892 – 1982) in preparation
for conference papers and an article provisionally entitled ‘“She ain’t exactly
cuddly!”: Djuna Barnes and the Grotesque Body’.
Dr Rupert Hildyard
Rupert has written on early twentieth century cultural history, and current
research interests include ecocriticism, contemporary poetry and eighteenth
century culture. He organised and hosted the 2006 Association for the Study of
Literature & the Environment conference on ‘The Future of Ecocriticism’ at
Lincoln University, and edited the latest edition of Green Letters, the journal
of ASLE UK. His most recent papers have been on contemporary fiction (John
Lanchester’s Mr Phillips), and the connection between Ecocriticism and theories
of poetry.
Dr Phil Langran
Phil’s main area of research and publication is in Postcolonial Studies, with a
special interest in Indian and Caribbean fiction in English. He is currently
developing a research interest in American Studies, with a focus on
representations of the southern USA and the application of postcolonial theory
to contemporary southern fiction and popular culture.
Dr Christopher Marlow
Christopher’s research deals primarily with early modern drama and poetry, and
he is particularly interested in representations of friendship and masculinity
in the period. Recent publications have been concerned with drama written and
performed at the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, and he is currently
writing a book entitled Studying Men: Masculinity and Friendship in English
University Drama 1537-1642. Christopher is also interested in the intersection
of sexuality, politics and community in drama, and has written on Doctor Who and
the concept of adaptation.
Catherine Redpath
Catherine’s current areas of interest are principally gender and sexuality
studies, particularly the work of Julia Kristeva and Helene Cixous. She is also
interested in film studies; in particular, she is concerned with evaluating how
films construct gendered subjectivities. She is especially interested in
representations of ‘shifting identities’ in terms of post 9/11 notions of the
fragmented ‘self’ and this has led her to research the fast evolving area of
trauma studies. She has previously published on the eighth and ninth century
Viking Eddas and Sagas and remains interested in this area.
Dr Phil Redpath
Phil’s research interests lie largely in twentieth century and post-millenial
literature. He has particular interests in William Golding, Ted Hughes and
Mervyn Peake and has written books and articles on all three. Currently he is
preparing to write a conference paper on the novels of David Peace and is also
writing on the literature produced during the era of Margaret Thatcher. He has
an interest in all things Postmodern, especially as they link to theory. His
other big interest is creative writing and he has just completed his third
novel. He is also working on a volume of poetry.
Dr Rebecca Styler
Rebecca’s main area of research is nineteenth-century women’s theology, as
expressed through the means of literature. She is currently writing a book
entitled Women Rewriting Christianity in the Nineteenth Century, and has
published articles on Elizabeth Gaskell’s gothic tales, and women’s spiritual
biography and autobiography. She plans further work on Victorian women’s
biographies of saints, and the dynamics of reason and feeling in the religious
writing of Elizabeth Gaskell and Anne Bronte.
