Professor
David Amigoni
Room: CBB1.039
Tel: 01782 733398
Email: d.amigoni@keele.ac.uk
I am Professor of Victorian Literature. I co-ordinate Research and postgraduate activity in English, including the MRes in Victorian Studies. I have research expertise in Victorian prose narrative, in particular the genres of life writing, and science and its relations to literature. I would be especially keen to supervise research students in these areas.
My books include: Victorian Biography (1993); Charles Darwin's Origin of Species: New Interdisciplinary Essays (1995) (edited with Jeff Wallace); Victorian Culture and the Idea of the Grotesque (1999) (edited with Colin Trodd and Paul Barlow), and Life Writing and Victorian Culture , an edited collection of ten original essays tracing new developments in the field (2006). My monograph Colonies, Cults and Evolution: Literature, Science and Culture in Nineteenth-Century Writing appeared in 2007, published by Cambridge University Press in their 'Studies in Nineteenth-Century Literature and Culture' series. Other writings include my book, The English Novel and Prose Narrative (Edinburgh 2000), and essays about Matthew Arnold, the Dictionary of National Biography, Charles Darwin and Wordsworth, Leslie Stephen, Thomas Carlyle, Harriet Martineau, Grant Allen, Victorian biographies of eighteenth-century men of letters, and Samuel Butler. Recently I have published essays on neo-Darwinian literary criticism, genetics in literature, and Ian McEwan and contemporary science. I am having an active Darwin Bicentenary; activities have included a public conversation with Ian McEwan at the Darwin 2009 Festival in Cambridge in July 2009.
I was the editor of the interdisciplinary Journal of Victorian Culture between July 2005 and July 2008, having been a member of the journal’s editorial board since its inception. I am a member of the editorial board for Blackwell's internet journal, Literature Compass, having been founding editor of its Victorian section. I was made a Fellow of the English Association in 2008.
Forthcoming publications include a chapter for the Cambridge History of Victorian Literature (edited by Kate Flint), a critical guide to Victorian literature (for Edinburgh University Press), a chapter for the forthcoming Oxford History of the Novel, and an edited volume of primary materials on the evolutionary epic for a Pickering and Chatto series edited by Bernard Lightman and Gowan Dawson; my co-editor for this volume is Dr James Elwick (University of York, Toronto); and an essay on evolution and literature for Bruce Clarke and Manuela Rossini (eds), The Routledge Companion to Literature and Science .
I am co-investigator, with Lucy Munro, on a major interdisciplinary project entitled ‘Ages and stages: the place of theatre in representations and recollections of ageing’, and led by Professor Miriam Bernard. We are working in partnership with the New Victoria Theatre, Newcastle-under-Lyme – originally Peter Cheeseman’s famous Victoria Theatre, Stoke-on-Trent (on which the project’s archival research is to be based). The project is funded under the New Dynamics of Ageing cross-council research programme, see:
http://www.newdynamics.group.shef.ac.uk/projects/38
Lucy Munro and I are organising a colloquium to stimulate discussion about ageing across the humanities and social sciences ‘divide’, entitled ‘Humanities Discourse and the Passing Life’ (Keele, 7 November: for details see [link]
I continue to work on the development of the Foundations of Sociology (Le Play) Archive at Keele with colleagues from Humanities, and the Institute of Law Politics and Justice, and Life Course Studies. Le Play is a unique collection of papers and social survey materials from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, deposited by Patrick Geddes, Victor Branford and associates. We have recently secured generous funding from the Sociological Review which enables us to catalogue the archive properly. I am contributing a paper this year to the University seminar series which celebrates completion of the first phase of this work (link)
I have an interest in the theory and practice of pedagogy. I co-wrote Get Set for English Literature with Julie Sanders (2003), and I have worked on a project concerned with 'the production of English in Mass Higher Education', with Ken Jones and Susan Bruce (Keele), and Monica McLean (Nottingham University); the project was funded by the English Subject Centre.
I am an experienced administrator and manager: at Keele I have been Research Dean for Humanities (2003-05), Head of the School of English (2004-05), and Director of the Research Institute for Humanities (2005-08).
Select recent publications
Colonies, Cults and Evolution: Literature, Science and Culture in Nineteenth-Century Writing , Cambridge Studies in Nineteenth-Century Literature and Culture, general editor Gillian Beer (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), pp. 237
(ed.) Life Writing and Victorian Culture , The Nineteenth Century series eds. Joanne Shattock and Vincent Newey (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006), pp.xv, 236. Personal contribution 'Introduction: Victorian Life Writing; Genres, Print, Constituencies', 1-19
''The Written Symbol Extends Infinitely': Samuel Butler and the writing of evolutionary theory', in James G. Paradis (ed), Samuel Butler: Victorian Against the Grain, (Toronto: Toronto University Press, 2008), 92-112.
''The luxury of storytelling': literature, science and cultural contest in the narrative practice of Ian McEwan' in Essays and Studies, Science and Literature 2008, ed. Sharon Ruston (English Association: Boydell and Brewer, 2008), 151-67
'A Consilient Canon? Bridges to and from Evolutionary Literary Analysis', review article (5000 words), English Studies in Canada 32: 2-3 (June/September 2006), 173-85
'What is special about the gene? A literary perspective', Genomics, Society and Policy 4: 1 (April 2008), special issue: What Is Special About the Gene , guest editors Stephen Pattison and Andrew Edgar, 1-11; ESRC Genomics Network. www.gspjournal.com
‘Translating the Self: Sexuality, Religion and Sanctuary in John Addington Symonds’s Cellini and Other Acts of Life Writing’, Biography 32.1 (winter 2009), 161-72.
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Room: CBB1.039
Tel: 01782 733398
Email: d.amigoni@keele.ac.uk
I am Professor of Victorian Literature. I co-ordinate Research and postgraduate activity in English, including the MRes in Victorian Studies. I have research expertise in Victorian prose narrative, in particular the genres of life writing, and science and its relations to literature. I would be especially keen to supervise research students in these areas.
My books include: Victorian Biography (1993); Charles Darwin's Origin of Species: New Interdisciplinary Essays (1995) (edited with Jeff Wallace); Victorian Culture and the Idea of the Grotesque (1999) (edited with Colin Trodd and Paul Barlow), and Life Writing and Victorian Culture , an edited collection of ten original essays tracing new developments in the field (2006). My monograph Colonies, Cults and Evolution: Literature, Science and Culture in Nineteenth-Century Writing appeared in 2007, published by Cambridge University Press in their 'Studies in Nineteenth-Century Literature and Culture' series. Other writings include my book, The English Novel and Prose Narrative (Edinburgh 2000), and essays about Matthew Arnold, the Dictionary of National Biography, Charles Darwin and Wordsworth, Leslie Stephen, Thomas Carlyle, Harriet Martineau, Grant Allen, Victorian biographies of eighteenth-century men of letters, and Samuel Butler. Recently I have published essays on neo-Darwinian literary criticism, genetics in literature, and Ian McEwan and contemporary science. I am having an active Darwin Bicentenary; activities have included a public conversation with Ian McEwan at the Darwin 2009 Festival in Cambridge in July 2009.
I was the editor of the interdisciplinary Journal of Victorian Culture between July 2005 and July 2008, having been a member of the journal’s editorial board since its inception. I am a member of the editorial board for Blackwell's internet journal, Literature Compass, having been founding editor of its Victorian section. I was made a Fellow of the English Association in 2008.
Forthcoming publications include a chapter for the Cambridge History of Victorian Literature (edited by Kate Flint), a critical guide to Victorian literature (for Edinburgh University Press), a chapter for the forthcoming Oxford History of the Novel, and an edited volume of primary materials on the evolutionary epic for a Pickering and Chatto series edited by Bernard Lightman and Gowan Dawson; my co-editor for this volume is Dr James Elwick (University of York, Toronto); and an essay on evolution and literature for Bruce Clarke and Manuela Rossini (eds), The Routledge Companion to Literature and Science .
I am co-investigator, with Lucy Munro, on a major interdisciplinary project entitled ‘Ages and stages: the place of theatre in representations and recollections of ageing’, and led by Professor Miriam Bernard. We are working in partnership with the New Victoria Theatre, Newcastle-under-Lyme – originally Peter Cheeseman’s famous Victoria Theatre, Stoke-on-Trent (on which the project’s archival research is to be based). The project is funded under the New Dynamics of Ageing cross-council research programme, see:
http://www.newdynamics.group.shef.ac.uk/projects/38
Lucy Munro and I are organising a colloquium to stimulate discussion about ageing across the humanities and social sciences ‘divide’, entitled ‘Humanities Discourse and the Passing Life’ (Keele, 7 November: for details see [link]
I continue to work on the development of the Foundations of Sociology (Le Play) Archive at Keele with colleagues from Humanities, and the Institute of Law Politics and Justice, and Life Course Studies. Le Play is a unique collection of papers and social survey materials from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, deposited by Patrick Geddes, Victor Branford and associates. We have recently secured generous funding from the Sociological Review which enables us to catalogue the archive properly. I am contributing a paper this year to the University seminar series which celebrates completion of the first phase of this work (link)
I have an interest in the theory and practice of pedagogy. I co-wrote Get Set for English Literature with Julie Sanders (2003), and I have worked on a project concerned with 'the production of English in Mass Higher Education', with Ken Jones and Susan Bruce (Keele), and Monica McLean (Nottingham University); the project was funded by the English Subject Centre.
I am an experienced administrator and manager: at Keele I have been Research Dean for Humanities (2003-05), Head of the School of English (2004-05), and Director of the Research Institute for Humanities (2005-08).
Select recent publications
Colonies, Cults and Evolution: Literature, Science and Culture in Nineteenth-Century Writing , Cambridge Studies in Nineteenth-Century Literature and Culture, general editor Gillian Beer (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), pp. 237
(ed.) Life Writing and Victorian Culture , The Nineteenth Century series eds. Joanne Shattock and Vincent Newey (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006), pp.xv, 236. Personal contribution 'Introduction: Victorian Life Writing; Genres, Print, Constituencies', 1-19
''The Written Symbol Extends Infinitely': Samuel Butler and the writing of evolutionary theory', in James G. Paradis (ed), Samuel Butler: Victorian Against the Grain, (Toronto: Toronto University Press, 2008), 92-112.
''The luxury of storytelling': literature, science and cultural contest in the narrative practice of Ian McEwan' in Essays and Studies, Science and Literature 2008, ed. Sharon Ruston (English Association: Boydell and Brewer, 2008), 151-67
'A Consilient Canon? Bridges to and from Evolutionary Literary Analysis', review article (5000 words), English Studies in Canada 32: 2-3 (June/September 2006), 173-85
'What is special about the gene? A literary perspective', Genomics, Society and Policy 4: 1 (April 2008), special issue: What Is Special About the Gene , guest editors Stephen Pattison and Andrew Edgar, 1-11; ESRC Genomics Network. www.gspjournal.com
‘Translating the Self: Sexuality, Religion and Sanctuary in John Addington Symonds’s Cellini and Other Acts of Life Writing’, Biography 32.1 (winter 2009), 161-72.
Back to Staff List