Lynda Pratt
Professor of Modern Literature (Romanticism) and Faculty Associate Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research and Knowledge Exchange, Faculty of Arts
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Biography
BA (Manchester), DPhil (Oxon)
I am Associate Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research and Knowledge Exchange (Faculty of Arts) and Professor of Modern Literature (with a particular focus on the Romantic period). I have previously undertaken a number of senior administrative roles in the School of English, including: Director of Research and Knowledge Exchange and REF UoA Coordinator; Head of Literature 1500 to the Present; Founding Director of the Centre for Regional Literature and Culture; and Director of Postgraduate Research.
I am a Fellow of the English Association (elected 2012) and was, until December 2020, a member of the AHRC Strategic College. I am an editorial board member of the journals Romanticism, Essays in Romanticism and the Bulletin of the John Rylands Library. I sit on the editorial advisory boards for scholarly editions of the poetry of Walter Scott and the letters of Elizabeth Montagu and the letters of Percy Bysshe Shelley.
My research has been funded by grants from the Arts and Humanities Research Council, the British Academy, the Leverhulme Trust and the Modern Humanities Research Association. I have also received visiting awards from a number of North American institutions, including the Beinecke Library, Yale; the Huntington Library; Princeton University Library; and the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, Texas.
Expertise Summary
My expertise is in literature and culture from the eighteenth to early nineteenth centuries. I have particular interests in the recovery of literary reputations; scholarly editing; manuscript and print culture; digital humanities; counterfactual literary history; and poetry and place.
Teaching Summary
My teaching connects to my research expertise in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. I teach across all years of the undergraduate and postgraduate curriculum, from first year to MA. I… read more
Research Summary
My research is concentrated on the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, especially the Romantic period. I have particular interests in the recovery of literary reputations; scholarly… read more
I particularly welcome applications on all aspects of Romantic period literature and culture, and on writers and writing of the Long Eighteenth and the Nineteenth centuries.
Please drop me an e-mail if you would like to discuss a proposed topic.
I am a highly-experienced PhD supervisor and am currently supervising PhD students working on:
- Romanticism and philanthropy
- regional fiction written by women in the Romantic period
- Thomas Campbell
- the Minerva Press
- Lucy Hutchinson
- ideas of space in early nineteenth century women's writing
- research that crosses the creative-critical boundaries.
Recent students have successfully completed PhDs on:
- Romantic period women's writing
- the influence of Romantic writers on later poets, including Edward Thomas
- contemporary poetry and place
- the reception of Jane Austen in China
- blasphemy in the writings of Percy Shelley
- a scholarly edition of the letters of Samuel Rogers
- literature and politics in the 1790s
- Byron and history
My teaching connects to my research expertise in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. I teach across all years of the undergraduate and postgraduate curriculum, from first year to MA. I teach on a year 2 module on the period 1700-1830 and convene a more specialist year 3 module.
Undergraduate Modules taught
Year 1: 'Studying Modern Literature'
Year 2: 'From Talking Horses to Romantic Revolutionaries: Literature 1700-1830'
Year 3: 'Self and the World'
Postgraduate Modules taught
I teach on the core modules for the MA in English Literature, including 'Textualities' and supervise MA dissertations.
Current Research
My research is concentrated on the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, especially the Romantic period. I have particular interests in the recovery of literary reputations; scholarly editing; manuscript and print culture; digital humanities; counterfactual literary history; and poetry and place.
I lead an international team working on a multi-part, digital, fully open access edition of the collected correspondence of Robert Southey (1774-1843). One of the largest scale digital Romanticism projects currently in progress, it has already published the first scholarly edition of the letters written by Southey from 1791-1821, and in 2021 will add to this the first scholarly edition of his letters written between 1822-27. Future parts of the edition will include the letters written by Southey from 1828-39 and also the letters sent to him. You can find out more about the edition and read the letters already published by following the link below:
https://romantic-circles.org/editions/southey_letters
My interests also encompass British Romanticism and the culture of non-publication. A chapter related to this appeared in the Oxford Handbook of British Romanticism, ed. David Duff (2018).
I am actively involved in The Centre for Regional Literature and Culture (www.nottingham.ac.uk/crlc). This runs regular seminars and conferences and coordinates a number of research and outreach initiatives on space and place; cultural geography; writing and the local; regional and national literary cultures; and text-editing.
I am an experienced PhD supervisor and particularly welcome applications from students working on the Eighteenth Century, Romantic period and later Nineteenth Century. Please see below for more information.
Past Research
I have published extensively on the 'Lake' poet Robert Southey and his circle.
I was general editor of Robert Southey: Poetical Works 1793-1810 (2004), awarded an 'Honorable Mention' in the MLA prize for a Distinguished Scholarly Edition; and co-general editor of Robert Southey: Later Poetical Works (2012).
My edited collections Southey and the Contexts of English Romanticism and Wales and the Romantic Imagination (co-edited with Damian Walford Davies) appeared in 2006 and 2007 respectively. I have guest-edited Southey special issues of the journals Romanticism and Romanticism on the Net.