Research


Working outside the classroom

You will get to know our faculty as teachers, but when they are not in the classroom they are busy publishing books and articles, giving papers, carrying out original research projects and more.

Recent Publications

Books

Lyn Bennett

Rhetoric, Medicine, and the Woman Writer, 1600–1700 (Cambridge UP, 2018)

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Trevor Ross

Writing in Public: Literature and the Liberty of the Press in Eighteenth-Century Britain. John Hopkins University Press, 2018

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Bart Vautour

Meet Me on the Barricades. By Charles Yale Harrison. Edited, with introduction, appendices, and notes, by Emily Robins Sharpe and Bart Vautour. Canadian Literature Collection. Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press, 2016.

Bart Vautour

Public Poetics: Critical Issues in Canadian Poetry and Poetics. Edited with Erin Wunker, Travis Mason, and Christl Verduyn. TransCanada Series. Waterloo: Wilfred Laurier University Press, 2015.

Bart Vautour

This Time A Better Earth. By Ted Allan. Edited, with introduction, appendices, and notes, by Bart Vautour. Canadian Literature Collection. Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press, 2015.

Julia M. Wright

Julia M. Wright. Representing the National Landscape in Irish Romanticism. New York: Syracuse University Press, 2014.

 

Press Release

Articles

Melissa Furrow

“The Politics of Queen Philippa’s Mottoes: Five English Words,”  Modern Philology 114.3 (Feb. 2017), in press.

Carrie Dawson

“In Plain Sight: Documenting Immigration Detention in Canada.” Migration, Mobility and Displacement 3.1 (2016)

Carrie Dawson

“Refugee Hotels: the Discourse of Hospitality and Rise of Immigration Detention in Canada.” University of Toronto Quarterly 83.4 (2014): 826-46.

John Baxter

"Tying the knot in Othello," Essays in Criticism, 2014.

Ronald Tetreault

“Publishers, ‘Pirates’, and the Formation of Regency Authorship,” forthcoming in ESC: English Studies in Canada.

Current Research

Carrie Dawson
Carrie Dawson’s most recent research looks at the representation of refugees in contemporary literature and culture, especially relevant considering there were a record number of refugee claims made in Canada in 2017. For example, “The Refugee’s Body of Knowledge” begins by considering the negative implications of recent amendments to the refugee certification process. It foregrounds the waning importance of narrative in that process and then asks what is lost when refugees are denied the opportunity to tell their stories in meaningful and politically expedient forums. Other recent articles focus on the importance of truth-telling, silence, and subterfuge in contemporary writing by and about refugees.
Bart Vautour

Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Insight Grant ($343,736) for "Canada and the Spanish Civil War" (2014–2019)
www.spanishcivilwar.ca   

Julia Wright Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Insight Grant for a monograph and editing project on the Irish poet Thomas Moore, and a larger project on Irish literary criticism and theory in the Romantic period. (2013-18).
Christina Luckyj Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Insight Grant ($40,500) for "Reasonable Libertie": Early Modern Women Writers and the Politics of the Female Voice, 1603-1633

Awards and Distinctions

Kathleen Cawsey Recipient of the FASS Outstanding Teaching Award, 2021-2022.
Rohan Maitzen
Recipient of the FASS Outstanding Teaching Award, 2018-2019.
Shauntay Grant Inaugural Belong Research Fellowship Award recipient for 2019, in recognition of research on Rewriting Canadian folklore, Repositioning Black Canada: A case from old Nova Scotia

Conference Presentations

Lyn Bennett

"The Notebook of Dr. William James Almon." Accepted for the Meeting of the Atlantic Medieval and Early Modern Group. Mt. Allison University, 12-13 October 2018.
Erin Wunker "Water as Commons in Sue Goyette's Ocean." Raddall/Wylie Symposium, Acadia University, Wolfville, NS, July 6, 2018.
Anthony Enns "Live Musical Spectaculars: Eventizing Network Television in the Post-Network Age." Media Tactics and Engagement, European Network for Cinema and Media Studies Conference, Universiteit van Amsterdam, Netherlands. 27-29 June 2018.
Anthony Enns "Ephemeral Architecture: Media, Maternity, and the Metropolis." Urban Matters: Matterial Engagements with Communities and Borders in Times of Movement, 9th Annual Conference on the New Materialisms, Universiteit Utrecht, Netherlands, 20-22 June 2018.
Julia Wright "Dangerous Waters: Irish Literary Theory and Maturin's Gothic Works." Annual meeting of the American Conference on Irish Studies. Cork, Ireland, June 2018.
Judith Thompson "John Thelwall and the Uses of Oratory." Invited Lecture for The Romantic Lecture and its Institutions. London-Paris Romanticism Deminar International Panel. University of London. 18 May, 2018.

Lyn Bennett

"Waters Medicinal: Contradiction and Complexity in Early Modern Maritime Remedies." Accepted for the Atlantic Canada Studies Conference. Acadia University, 4-6 May 2018.
Julia Wright "From Ship to Shore: Transatlantic Transmission in Thomas Moore and Thomas D'Arcy McGee." ACCUTE Conference, Congress, Regina, May 2018.

Kathleen Cawsey

"Gold Letters, Ordinary Black Letters and Romance." Medieval Insular Romance Conference, Cardiff University, April 2018.
Erin Wunker "Only a Body to Measure Reality By: Autotheory as Feminist Poethics." American comparative Literature Association Annual Meeting. UCLA. Los Angeles, CA. March 30, 2018.
Christina Luckyj "Remaking Complaint in Mary Wroth's Urania," Shakespeare Association of America, Los Angeles, California, March 29, 2018.
Anthony Enns "Imaging the Mind: Photography, Neurology, and the Science of Brain Waves." Mind Reading as Cultural Practice, Institut für Kulturwissenschaft, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Germany, 22-23 March 2018.
Judith Thompson "(Re)Visiting the Recluse: John Thelwall in/and Wordsworth's Excursion." Invited Lecture at Wordsworth Winter School. Rydal Mount, Rydal, February 20, 2018.

Kathleen Cawsey

"Rushing Water, Broken Air, Ragging Wildfire: Chaucer's Transformation of Classical Theories of Language in the House of Fame" Vernacularities Seminar Series, Durham University, January 2018.

Jason Haslam

"Melville, Miéville, and the Gothic Subject of Offshore Oil." Invited Presentation. London, ON: Western University, January 2018.
Judith Thompson "Educating the Vox Populi: John Thelwall's Institutions of Learning 1794-1834." Invited talk in CEntre for Enlightenment Studies 2017-18 season. Kings College London. November 28, 2017.
Antony Enns "Preserving the Dead: Postmortem Photographs, Funeral Practices, and Mourning Rituals in the 19th Century." Photography: Practices and Explorations, Halifax, Canada, 28 October 2017.
Trevor Ross "Dangerous Words in the Courtroom and out: On the Emergence of 'Propaganda' and 'Literature'," Joint Meeting of the Canadian Society for 18th-Century Studies and the Notheast American Society for the 18th-Century Studies, Toronto, ON, 18-22 October 2017.
Julia Wright "Who Watches the Microwaves?: Technology and the Gothic State." Annual Conference of the Canadian Association for American Studies. OCADU, Toronto, 27-29 October 2017.
Christina Luckyj "'A womans logicke:' Puritan Women Writers and the Rejection of Education," English Department Speaker' Series, Dalhousie University English Department, October 6, 2017.
Judith Thompson "Affiance on Affiance Multiply: Jogn Thelwall and the Hope of Future Time." The Politics of Romanticism. 17th Conference of the German Society for English Romanticism. Otto Friedrichs Universität, Bamberg, Germany. 5-8 October, 2017.
Leonard Diepeveen "The Modernism of Newspaper Columnists, 1900-1930." Modernist Studies Association Conference, Amsterdam, August 10-13, 2017.
Alice Brittan "My 21 Grams: Why Am I Dead to the Writers I Love?" Keynote address. Defiance: An Interdisciplinary Graduate Conference. Dalhousie University English Department. Halifax NS. August 2017.
Judith Thompson "The Romantic Life of John Thelwell," Romantic Life. 25th Annual Conference of North American Society for the Study of Romanticism. Ottawa Ontario. 10-13 August, 2017.
Judith Thompson "Survival and Revival The Networks of the Derby MS." Radical Networks and Cultures of Reform 1780-1820. Conference of the John Thelwell Society. University of Derby, UK. 21-23 July 2017.
Julia Wright "All the Terrors of Shipwrecked Vessels': Maturin and Contemporary Irish Literary Theory." Biennial Conference of the International Gothic Association. Cholula, Mexico, 18-21 July, 2017.
Judith Thompson "On Thelwall's Institution." Concluding Roundtable in Institutions as Networks. Second workshop of Institutions of Literature 1700-1900. Society of Antiquaries, London. 13-14 July, 2017.
Jason Haslam "'That electric feeling in the air': Stoker's Gothic Energies." Cork: American Conference on Irish Studies, June 2018 (also presented at Regina: Association for Canadian College and University Teachers of English, May 2017).
Jason Haslam "'Public Intellectuals' avant et sans la lettre: SF, Social Media, and the Ends of Engagement." Regina: Association for Canadian College and University Teachers of English, May 2017.
Jason Haslam "Ellison, Delany, and theForgetting of Things Future." Toronto: Canadian Association for American Studies, October 2017 (also presented at Toronto: Association for Canadian College and University Teachers of English, May 2017).
Jason Haslam "Moby-Dick and Energy Gothic." Cholula, Mexico: International Gothic Association, 18-21 July 2017 (revised version of "Oily Dick." Halifax: Canada's Responsibility to Our Shining Seas: Ethics, Community, Culture, 1867-2067) (Social Sciences and Humanities Oceans Research and Education [SSHORE] Workshop), 10-12 May 2017.

Kathleen Cawsey

"Traces of a Philosophy ofLanguage in the English Vernacular Grammatica Texts" Canadian Society of Medievalists, Carlton University, May 2017
Carrie Dawson "The Anti-Confessional Impulse in Canadian Refugee Writing." Presented at the annual ACCUTE Conference, Toronto, ON (May 2017)
Carrie Dawson "Treaty to Tell the Truth: Silence and Subterfugein Refugee Writing." Presented at the annual meeting of the Canadian Association for Refugee and Forced Migration Studies, Victoria, BC (May 2017)
Carrie Dawson "Affect and Abstraction in Refugee Photos." Presented at the annual meeting of the Canadian Association for Refugee and Forced Migration Studies, Victoria, BC (May 2017)
Carrie Dawson "Treaty to Tell the Truth: Silence and Subterfuge in Refugee Writing." Presented at "Untold Stories of the Past 150 Years," Canadian Literature Conference, Dublin, Ireland (April 2017)

Lyn Bennett

"Self-Fashioning Women: Remedies, Recipes, and Rhetoric of Mediation." Society for the Study of Early Modern Women Panel. Meeting of the Renaissance Society of America (RSA). Chicago, Illinois. 30 March-1 April 2017.
Leonard Diepeveen "Revolting Modernisms." Moderator. Modern Language Association Conference, Philadelphia, January 5-8, 2017.

Scholars in the Media

Rohan Maitzen Interview: "Wilkie Collins: A true detective of the human mind." Ideas, CBC Radio (Jan 8, 2024)
Rohan Maitzen Interview: "Downton Abbey season 5: The triumph of period drama" CBC (Jan. 3, 2015)