James Peacock

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Biography

I completed an MSc in English Literature: Nation, Writing Culture at the University of Edinburgh, where I also completed my thesis on Paul Auster in July 2006. My principal area of research is contemporary American fiction, focussing on New York fictions, gentrification stories and literary depictions of urban neighbourhoods. I am especially interested in interactions between local and global identities in changing urban spaces. Other areas of research include transnationalism in the music of The Clash; Quakerism and American literature; detective fiction (again from a transnational perspective); and Philip K. Dick. I am happy to supervise undergraduate dissertations and PhD theses on any of these topics.

Teaching

Modules I teach include Literature as History: Writing the America, Words and Pictures: The Contemporary American Graphic Novel and Silence, Strength and Sentiment: Gender and Sexuality in Nineteenth-Century American Writing. I’ve supervised final year dissertations on Edgar Allan Poe, Emily Dickinson, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Paul Auster, among others. I’m happy to discuss dissertation proposals on all aspects of nineteenth-century American literature, contemporary American fiction, detective fiction, Edward Hopper, New York in fiction, and graphic novels.

Selected Publications

Peacock J. 2020. Self-Dispersal and Self-Help: Paul Auster's Second Person. Critique - Studies in Contemporary Fiction. doi> link> full text>
Peacock JH. 2020. Those the dead left behind: Gentrification and Haunting in Contemporary Brooklyn Fictions. Studies in American Fiction. full text>
Cohen S and Peacock J. 2017. The Clash Takes on the World Transnational Perspectives on The Only Band that Matters. Bloomsbury Publishing USA.
Lustig T and Peacock J. Lustig T and Peacock J (Eds.). 2013. Diseases and Disorders in Contemporary Fiction: The Syndrome Syndrome. Routledge.
Lustig T and Peacock J. Lustig T and Peacock J (Eds.). 2013. Diseases and Disorders in Contemporary Fiction: The Syndrome Syndrome. Routledge.

Full Publications Listshow

Books

Cohen S and Peacock J. 2017. The Clash Takes on the World Transnational Perspectives on The Only Band that Matters. Bloomsbury Publishing USA.
Peacock J. 2015. Brooklyn Fictions The Contemporary Urban Community in a Global Age. Bloomsbury Publishing. full text>
Lustig T and Peacock J. Lustig T and Peacock J (Eds.). 2013. Diseases and Disorders in Contemporary Fiction: The Syndrome Syndrome. Routledge.
Lustig T and Peacock J. Lustig T and Peacock J (Eds.). 2013. Diseases and Disorders in Contemporary Fiction: The Syndrome Syndrome. Routledge.
Peacock J. 2012. Jonathan Lethem. Manchester Univ Pr.
PEACOCK JH. Bruccoli M (Ed.). 2010. Understanding Paul Auster. Columbia, South Carolina. link>

Journal Articles

Peacock J. Autobodies: Detectives, Disorders, and Getting out of the Neighborhood. European journal of American studies, vol. 16(4). doi> link> full text>
Peacock J. 2020. Self-Dispersal and Self-Help: Paul Auster's Second Person. Critique - Studies in Contemporary Fiction. doi> link> full text>
Peacock JH. 2020. Those the dead left behind: Gentrification and Haunting in Contemporary Brooklyn Fictions. Studies in American Fiction. full text>
Peacock JH. The Blot Inside: Jonathan Lethem’s A Gambler’s Anatomy, Lack, Dissent, and Corporate Power. Review of Contemporary Fiction, 117-130, vol. 35(2). full text>
Peacock JH. Charles Brockden Brown’s Wieland; or The Transformation (1798). Gothic Reader, 39-44. full text>
Peacock JH. 2016. “My thoughts shifted from the past to the future”: Time and (autobio)graphic representation in Miné Okubo’s Citizen 13660. Journal of Postcolonial Writing, 1-19. doi> link> full text>
Peacock JH. 2016. “My thoughts shifted from the past to the future”: Time and (autobio)graphic representation in Miné Okubo’s Citizen 13660. Journal of Postcolonial Writing. doi> full text>
Peacock JH. 2016. Apocalypse after Apocalypse: Reggie Nadelson's Artie Cohen Novels. Clues: a journal of detection, 114-123, vol. 34(2). full text>
Peacock JH. 2015. An Interview with Emily Barton. Contemporary Literature, Article 1, vol. 56(1). full text>
Peacock JH. Risk, Disappointment and Distraction in Keith Gessen’s All the Sad Young Literary Men. European Journal of American Studies, vol. 9(1). doi> full text>
Peacock JH. 2013. Divided Loyalties, Changing Landscapes: William McIlvanney's Laidlaw Novels. English, 69-86, vol. 62(236). doi>
Peacock JH. 2013. Divided Loyalties, Changing Landscapes: William McIlvanney’s Laidlaw Novels. English, 69-86, vol. 52(236). doi>
Peacock JH. 2011. Sunset Park, by Paul Auster. Warwick Review, 96-103, vol. 5(1).
Peacock J. 2011. The Father in the Ice: Paul Auster, Character, and Literary Ancestry. Critique (Washington): studies in contemporary fiction, 362-376, vol. 52(3). link> doi>
Peacock JH. 2010. A Tale of Too Many Cities: The Clash’s ‘Ghetto Defendant’ and Transnational Disruptions. Symbiosis: a Journal of Anglo-American Literary Relations, 19-41, vol. 14(1). full text>
Peacock JH. 2010. The Clash and Allen Ginsberg. Symbiosis: a journal of anglo-american literary relations, 19-42, vol. 14(1).
Peacock J. 2009. Anglophilia: Deference, Devotion, and Antebellum America. JOURNAL OF AMERICAN STUDIES, 561-562, vol. 43(3). link> doi>
Peacock J. 2009. Jonathan Lethem's Genre Evolutions. Journal of American Studies, 425-440, vol. 43(3). doi>
Peacock J. 2009. Unearthing Paul Auster's Poetry. ORBIS LITTERARUM, 413-437, vol. 64(5). link> doi>
PEACOCK JH. 2008. “What they seek for is in themselves: Quaker Language and Thought in Eighteenth and Nineteenth-Century American literature.". Quaker Studies, 196-215, vol. 12(2). link> full text>
PEACOCK JH. 2008. "New York and yet not New York": Reading the Region in Contemporary Brooklyn Fictions. European Journal of American Studies, N/A, vol. 2008(2). doi> link>
Peacock JH. 2007. The Multiple Worlds of Pynchon's Mason and Dixon. Journal of American Studies, 211, vol. 41(1).
PEACOCK JH. 2006. 'Carrying the burden of representation: Paul Auster's "The Book of Illusions"'. Journal of American Studies, 53-69, vol. 40(1). doi>
Peacock J. 2006. Signs of Grace: Paul Auster's "Oracle Night". English, 65-78, vol. 55(211). doi>
Peacock J. 2006. The Light and the Fogg: Edward Hopper and Paul Auster. Janus Head, vol. 9(1).
PEACOCK JH. 2005. 'Who was John Bartram? Literary and epistolary depictions of the Quaker'. Symbiosis: a Journal of Anglo-American Literary Relations , 29-44, vol. 9(1). full text>

Chapters

Peacock J. Gentrification. In The City in American Literature and Culture. (20 vols.). CUP. doi> link> full text>
Peacock JH. 2011. Faking it or Making it? Forgery, Real Lives and the True Fake in The Brooklyn Follies. In The Invention of Illusions: International Perspectives on Paul Auster. Newcastle-upon-Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Press.

Other

Gentrification in the House! John Lanchester’s Capital, Brian Platzer’s Bed-Stuy is Burning, and the House as Nexus of Glocal Forces. full text>
Peacock JH. 2015. Brooklyn Fictions: an Almost-Imaginary Conversation between Five Brooklyn Writers. link>
Peacock JH. 2011. Why All the Marsupials? An Interview with Jonathan Lethem. link>
Peqacock J. 2009. Negotiations: An Interview with Jonathan Lathem.

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Dr James Peacock