Philip Tew

Philip Tew B.A. (Hons), MPhil, PGCE(Leicester), PhD (Westminster), FRSA, MRSL Professor of English (Post-1900 Literature) Director, Brunel Centre for Contemporary Writing Senior & Admissions Tutor for Postgraduate English Research Students
Room: GB128 Email: philip.tew@brunel.ac.uk Direct Line: 01895 267257 Direct student-line +44 (0)7956 951930 (rates to UK mobile applies to calls / texts received)

Philip Tew is Professor of English (Post-1900 Literature) at Brunel, the elected Director of the UK Network for Modern Fiction Studies, Director of the Brunel Centre for Contemporary Writing (BCCW), Co-Editor of both Critical Engagements and of Symbiosis: A Journal of Anglo-American Literary Relations, a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and a member of the Royal Society of Literature. His monographs published are B. S. Johnson: A Critical Reading (Manchester UP, 2001), The Contemporary British Novel (Continuum, 2004; Serbian trans. Svetovi, 2006; rev. 2nd edition Continuum, 2007), and Jim Crace: A Critical Introduction (Manchester UP, 2006). To date he has edited four collections in the field of contemporary British Fiction: Contemporary British Fiction, with Richard J. Lane and Rod Mengham (Polity, 2003); British Fiction Today: Critical Essays with Rod Mengham (Continuum, 2006); Teaching Contemporary British Fiction [special issue of Anglistik und Englischunterricht] with Steve Barfield, Anja Muller-Wood and Leigh Wilson (Universitätsverlag Winter, 2007); and Re-Reading B. S. Johnson with Glyn White (Palgrave Macmillan, 2007). Tew is also co-editor of several book series, including Palgrave’s New British Fiction Series and the new Continuum Handbook Series. He is the subject of a page on Wikipedia [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Tew].

Tew's major research interests are in post-1945 and contemporary fiction and culture, and theoretical readings of literature generally. He has a longstanding, if intermittent focus on American literature. Recent work included a book on Zadie Smith for Palgrave Macmillan. Longer-term projects concern B. S. Johnson and Meta-realism. Tew plans to co-edit (with Jonathan Coe) a collection of B. S. Johnson's shorter unpublished and out of print work (once permissions and once the British Library’s recent acquisition of Johnson’s archive has been processed). At Brunel he is collaborating with colleagues in raising the university's profile as a centre of research excellence for contemporary literature and writing. In 2008 / 2009 he led a team of academics from Brunel (including Dr. Nick Hubble and Dr. Jago Morrison) in a submission for funds to undertake a project entitled ‘Fiction and the Cultural Mediation of Ageing’ submitted to ESRC as part of New Dynamics of Ageing initiative (outcome pending).

Together with colleagues Tew has recently organized two major conferences hosted at Brunel: ‘Millennial Fictions’ 6th – 7th July 2007 in collaboration with the UK Network for Modern Fiction Studies, the Symbiosis biennial conference entitled 'Anglo-American Aesthetics: Innovations and Economies of Influence?' 12th - 15th July 2007. The BCCW hosted the annual Literary London conference from 2 – 4 July 2008. The IAPL annual convention will be held at Brunel in June 2009.

In the 1970s and early 1980s Tew completed his first degree and subsequently a PGCE and an M.Phil at Leicester University, followed in 1995–1997 by a Ph.D-‘“Accepting the Known?' Dialectical Thematics in B. S. Johnson’ which he completed in twenty months at the University of Westminster. Since 1990 he has taught variously in higher education including at Jesus College Cambridge, Birmingham City, Debrecen (Hungary), Szeged (Hungary), Northampton, Westminster, and Wolverhampton Universities.

In November to December 2008 Tew offered two papers in Taiwan first a keynote address entitled ‘Considering the Case of Hong Ying's K the Art of Love: Home, Exile and Reconciliations,’ at the ‘”In the Shadows of Empire:’ Second International Asian American and Asian British Literature Conference,’ held Nov. 28 – 29 at the Institute of European and American Studies, Academia Sinica, in Taipei. As in invited speaker he also delivered two versions of a lecture entitled ‘Exploring the Traumatic in Ian McEwan’s Later Fiction,’ at Taipei Medical University on Dec. 2 – 3.

CURRENT RESEARCH

‘Post-war Renewals of Experiment,’ in The Cambridge History of the English Novel, Robert Caserio and Clement Hawes (eds.) (Cambridge UP, forthcoming, 2010).

A 7,000 word contribution exploring formally experimental writers such as J. G. Ballard, John Fowles, William Golding, Wilson Harris, Rayner Heppenstall, B. S. Johnson, Ann Quin, Alexander Trocchi, and also the ironic innovations of those such as Kingsley Amis, Anthony Burgess, Henry Green, Graham Greene, Muriel Spark, Evelyn Waugh, Angus Wilson.

LONGER TERM RESEARCH PROJECTS

Recovering Walt Whitman: Early Influences, Anglo-American Contexts.

This project will further develop some existing research papers which are concerned with the critical and cultural milieu in which Walt Whitman developed his earliest versions of Leaves of Grass, and the critical and cultural reception of Whitman which has developed variously over the years. One central theme will be the contestation of the account that this jobbing printer, journalist and prose writer was transformed solely by the American landscape during his abortive trip to New Orleans and return via Canada. In this study Tew will chart and analyze Whitman’s developing aesthetic ideas, recover and re-evaluate some of the now neglected influences recognized in early scholarship, including key aspects of Victorian English culture, and particularly the dynamic part played by new technology and cultural innovations.

Selected Shorter Writing of B. S. Johnson. Edited by Jonathan Coe and Philip Tew.

Selected Shorter Writing of B. S. Johnson is intended as a volume of work by the Johnson which is currently either out of print or has never been published, to be co-edited with Jonathan Coe. Discussions are underway with the B. S. Johnson estate and Manchester UP, from whom a contract has been promised. The archive is mostly held in the British Library, and the editors will work on a range of items including published and unpublished poetry, journalism, letters, essays, drama and juvenilia with notes and a commentary. Recently the B.S. Johnson archive has been purchased by the British Library and a schedule for this project will be announced in due course.

POSTGRADUATE SUPERVISION: MPHIL & PHD

Prof. Tew welcomes queries from potential MPhil/PhD students (both full and part-time) most especially in the areas of twentieth and twenty-first century fiction and culture, Anglo-American literary and cultural contexts, and twentieth / twenty-first century criticism and theory. His own areas of research interests also include: aesthetic and philosophical interpretation and analysis of culture and fiction; meta-realist (critical and radical realist) interpretations; sociology and fiction; the Anglo-American experimental novel; and fiction and social gerontology. He also publishes occasionally in other fields, including American Fiction and Victorian Studies.

To date Prof. Tew has undertaken close supervision of students who have successfully submitted PhDs in various fields, including: Salman Rushdie; Marginality in Contemporary British Fiction; the Anti-Heroic in the American Novel of the 1960s; Representations of Arabia and North Africa in Selected Prose and Novels from 1945; and Modernism, Postmodernism, Realism and John Fowles. The latter project was awarded a Brunel University Vice-Chancellor’s Prize in 2009 for the completion of outstanding doctoral research. Tew has also offered both formal and informal tuition to other successful PhD students on a variety of topics including: Laurence Sterne; Margaret Oliphant; and theory for a project on Beckett and the theatre of cruelty. Tew's current postgraduate students are undertaking research in the following areas: Working Class Characterization and Authorship in Contemporary British Fiction; Masculine Identity in Selected Fiction from 1945; London in Pre-Millennial and Post-Millennial British Fiction; Arab and North African Women’s Writing and Feminism; and the Esoteric in British Fiction after 1975. Tew has additionally been external examiner for PhD viva examinations at several other universities.

Two of Tew’s PhD students who completed their PhD dissertations successfully in 2006 and 2007 have recently published them as monographs in 2008 with major publishers, the first with Palgrave Macmillan (U.S.) in May:

The Anti-Hero in the American Novel: From Joseph Heller to Kurt Vonnegut

The second was published by Continuum in October:

Marginality in the Contemporary British Novel

For prospective research students initial informal contact by e-mail may be advisable [although you may ring or text from within the UK his student-line bearing in mind calls rates to a UK mobile will apply: + 44 (0)7956 951930]. Tew is willing to email or telephone prospective students (the latter only in the UK and USA) by arrangement as appropriate, and is most happy to discuss putative projects in advance. In any message please be as clear and as precise as possible, leaving all the necessary particulars about yourself, your project and specifying all points of contact.

FORTHCOMING PUBLICATIONS

Selected Shorter Writing of B. S. Johnson, to be co-edited with Jonathan Coe - Manchester UP. [contract offered].

EXISTING PUBLICATIONS (FROM 1998)

Books

Modernism Handbook. Philip Tew and Alex Murray (eds.) [Continuum Handbooks for Literature and Culture Series / Steven Barfield and Philip Tew (Gen. eds.), London: Continuum, 2009. pp. 248. [ISBN:0826488439 / 978-0826488435].

New Versions of Pastoral: Post-romantic, Modern, and Contemporary Responses to the Tradition. David James and Philip Tew (eds). Madison / Teeaneck: Fairleigh Dickinson UP, 2009. pp. 295. [ISBN: 083864189X / 978-0838641897].

Zadie Smith [Palgrave Macmillan New British Fiction Series, Gen. Eds. Philip Tew and Rod Mengham] London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009 [ISBN: 0230516769 / 978-0230516762].

Beckett and Death. Steve Barfield, Philip Tew and Matthew Feldman (eds). London: Continuum, 2009 [ISBN:0826498353 / 978-0826498359].

Writers Talk: Conversations with Contemporary Novelists. Philip Tew, Fiona Tolan and Leigh Wilson (eds.) London: Continuum, 2008. 198 pp. (ISBN: 9780826490582).

Re-Reading B. S. Johnson. Philip Tew and Glyn White (eds.) London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007. 240pp. [ISBN-13: 978-0230524927 / ISBN-10: 0230524923].

Teaching Contemporary British Fiction [special issue of Anglistik und Englischunterricht] Barfield, Steve, Philip Tew, Anja Muller-Wood and Leigh Wilson (eds.). Heidelberg : Universitätsverlag Winter, 2007) [ISBN: 9783825352882 / 3825352889; ISSN: 0344 8266].

British Fiction Today. Philip Tew and Rod Mengham (eds.) London and New York : Continuum, 2006 (ISBN: HB: 08264 87319; PB: 08264 873 27).

Savremeni Britanski Roman [САВРЕМЕНИ БРИТАНСКИ РОМАН. Serb translation of The Contemporary British Novel], Svetovi Press: Novi Sad, Serbia, 2006. Trans. Nataša Vavan Pralica. [ISBN 8670474905].

Jim Crace. Contemporary British Fiction series (gen. ed. Dr. Daniel Lea). Manchester: Manchester UP, 2006. (P/B 0719069130/ 978-0719069130; H/B 0719069122/ 978-0719069123).

The Contemporary British Novel, London and New York: Continuum, 2004, pp. 206 (ISBN 0 8264 7349/0 8624 7350 4); The Contemporary British Novel, London: Continuum, 2007. Second Revised Edition. pp. 257 (ISBN: 0826493203 / 978-0826493200 ).

Contemporary British Fiction, Mengham, Rod, Richard Lane and Philip Tew (eds.) Cambridge: Polity Press, 2003, pp. 276 (ISBN: 0745628664).

B. S. Johnson: A Critical Reading, Manchester and New York: Manchester UP and St. Martin 's, 2001, pp.274; (ISBN 0 7190 5626 8, 285).

Chapters in Books

‘Jim Crace’s Enigmatical Pastoral’ in New Versions of Pastoral: Post-Romantic, Modern, and Contemporary Responses to the Tradition. David James and Philip Tew. (eds.). Madison, Teaneck: Fairleigh Dickinson UP / London: Associated UP, 2009: 230 – 44.

‘Childhood, Longing, Sexuality, Violence and Sacrifice in Rumer Godden’s The River (1946), An Episode of Sparrows (1956) and The Greengage Summer (1958),’ in Rumer Godden. Phyliss Lassner and Lucy A. Le-Guilcher (eds.). Farnham, Surrey and Burlington, VT.: Ashgate, 2009

‘Kurt Vonnegut’s Mother Night (1961): Howard W. Campbell Jr. and the Banalities of Evil,’ in New Critical Essays on Kurt Vonnegut. David Simmons (ed.). New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009

‘Situating the Violence of J.G. Ballard's Postmillennial Fiction: The Possibilities of Sacrifice, the Certainties of Trauma,’ in J. G. Ballard: Contemporary Critical Perspectives. Jeanette Baxter (ed). London: Continuum, 2008: 107 - 119.

‘James Thomson’s London: Beyond the Apocalyptic Vision of the City?’ in A Mighty Mass of Brick and Smoke: Victorian and Edwardian Representations of London. Lawrence Phillips (ed.). Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi, 2007: 107 – 29 (ISBN: 9789042022904).

‘Wintersonian Masculinities.’ In Jeanette Winterson. Sonya Andermahr (ed.). London: Continuum, 2007, 114 – 29. (HB: 9780826492746 / PB: 9780826492753).

‘Literary Theory.’ Dictionary of Critical Realism. Mervyn Hartwig (ed.). London and New York : Routledge, 2007, 280–2. [ISBN: H/B 0415261619, 9780415261616; P/B 041526099x, 9780415260992]

Martin Amis and Late-twentieth-century Working-class Masculinity: Money and London Fields.’ Gavin Keulks. (ed). Martin Amis: Postmodernism and Beyond. Basingstoke and New York : Palgrave Macmillan, 2006, 71–86. (ISBN: H/B 0230008305, 9780230008304).

'Exploring the Self, Judaism and the Pentateuch: Jenny Diski's Skating to Antarctica (1997), Only Human: A Divine Comedy (2000) and After These Things (2004).' British Fiction Today: Critical Essays. Rod Mengham and Philip Tew (eds.) London: Continuum, 2006 (ISBN: HB: 08264 87319; PB: 08264 873 27).

'Across the Prairies, and Beyond the Postmodern: A. L. Kennedy, Linda Hutcheon and Realizing the Contemporary,' Wascana Review of Contemporary Poetry and Fiction (ISSN 12044725). [refereed submission]

'B. S. Johnson and the BBC: Initial Contacts,' in Reading Without Maps: Cultural Landmarks in a Post-Canonical Age, ed. Christophe Den Tandt [feschrift for Pr. Gilbert Debusscher, Université Libre de Bruxelles], Brussels and New York : PIE/Peter Lang, 2005. [invited contribution]

‘Exploring an Economy of Exegetical Structures through Cassirer and Bourdieu.’ Metaphors of Economy. Critical Studies series. Nicole Bracker and Stefan Herbrechter (eds.). Amsterdam: Rodopi Press, 2005: 39–53 (ISBN: 90-420-1568-3).

'British Theory and Criticism, 1900 and After', essay in The Johns Hopkins Guide to Criticism and Theory, 2nd ed. (with Prof. Philip Smallwood), (Baltimore & London: Johns Hopkins UP), Michael Groden, Martin Kreiswirth, and Imre Szeman (eds.), 156 -160. (ISBN: 0-8018-8010-6)

‘My doingthings: London according to B. S. Johnson,’ in Literary London (Rodopi Press, 2004), Lawrence Phillips (ed.), 111 - 129 (ISBN: 9042016639).

‘Three Dialogues as a Laughable Text?: Beckett's Bergsonian Comedy,’ Samuel Beckett Today/Aujourd'hui, 1 February 2003, vol. 13, no. 1, 105-118; Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi. (ISBN: 90-420-0808-3) [refereed submission]

‘A New Sense of Reality? A New Sense of the Text? Exploring the Literary-Critical Field and Meta-Realism.’ After Postmodernism (de Gruyter: Berlin and New York, 2003), Klaus Stierstorfer (ed.), 29 - 50. (ISBN: 3-11-017722-6).

‘Radical Victorian,’ critical after-word, James Thomson, The City of Dreadful Night, London: Agraphia, 2003, 55 - 66 (ISBN: 1 904596 01 0).

‘Philosophy, Psychoanalysis and Parody: Exceedingly Beckett,’ Marius Buning, Matthijs Engelberts and Sjef Houppermans (eds.) Pastiches, Parodies & Other Imitations (Samuel Beckett Today/Aujourd'hui 12) Amsterdam and New York, Rodopi, 2002, 93 - 104 (ISBN: 90-420-1094-0) [jointly authored] [refereed submission]

‘The Fiction of A. L. Kennedy,’ in Contemporary British Fiction Post-1979: A Critical Introduction, Cambridge: Polity Press, 2003, 120 - 39 (see above: ISBN: 0745628664).

‘Philosophical adjacency: Beckett's Prose Fragments via Jurgen Habermas,’ chapter in Richard J. Lane (ed.) Beckett and Philosophy, London: Palgrave, 2002, 140 - 153; (ISBN: 0-333-91879-7).

‘Co-ordinates for Reconsidering Literary Interpretation,’ Garry Potter & Jose Lopez (eds.) After Postmodernism: An Introduction to Critical Realism, London: Athlone Press: 2001, 196 - 205; (ISBN: HB - 0 00440 2; PB - 0 485 00629 4).

‘Chaos and Truth: B. S. Johnson's Theoretical and Literary Narratives;’ chapter in Maria Kurdi, Gabriella Hartvig and Andrew C. Rouse, (eds.), Focus: Papers in English Literary and Cultural Studies, University of Pecs Press, Pecs, 2000, 38 - 54; (ISSN: 1585-5228).

Papers & Essays in Refereed Journals

‘A Phenomenology of the Suffering of Others: the Case of Ralph Ernest Gorse.’ Critical Engagements. 1, 1 (2007): 291 – 310 (ISSN: 1754-0984). [refereed submission].

‘A Conversation between Jim Crace and Philip Tew.’ Critical Engagements. 1.1 (2007): 333 – 56. [ISSN: 1754-0984]

‘Survey on Teaching Contemporary British Fiction.’ With Mark Addis. Changing English. Vol. 14, No 3 (December 2007): 313 – 324. [ISSN: 1358-684X ]

'Introduction,' 'Complex Figures' edition of New Formations: A Journal of Culture/Theory/Politics, 49 Spring 2003,Tew, Philip and Wendy Wheeler (eds.), 7 - 13. [see below]

'Complex Figures' edition of New Formations: A Journal of Culture/Theory/Politics, 49 Spring 2003, Philip Tew, and Wendy Wheeler (eds.), 187pp; (ISSN 09502378; ISBN 0853159742).

‘B. S. Johnson,’ [author overview essay] The Review of Contemporary Fiction, 22:1, Spring 2002, 7 - 58; (ISSN: 0276-0045). [refereed submission]

‘A Matter of Memory: Monica Jones, Philip Larkin & Myself,’ About Larkin: Newsletter of the Philip Larkin Society (sponsored by St. John's College , Oxford ), 12, Oct. 2001, 19 - 20; (ISSN: 1362-542X).

‘(Re)-acknowledging B. S. Johnson's Radical Realism, or Re-publishing The Unfortunates’ Critical Survey, 13:1, 2001, 37 - 61. (ISSN: 0011-1570).

'Forgotten Voices' issue, Hungarian Journal for English and American Studies, 5 (2) Autumn/Winter 1999, guest editor [proceedings of ‘Forgotten Voices of the Twentieth Century Symposium’ held at the University of Westminster in June 1999] pp. 234; (ISSN: 1218-7364).

‘Theorizing The Lexicon of Youth in Contemporary Irish Fiction: Mac Laverty, Bolger, and Doyle via Lefebvre's Tenth Prelude,’ special issue ‘Essays on Contemporary Irish Literature and Culture in Honour of Brian Friel at Seventy’ HJEAS; The Hungarian Journal of English and American Studies, 5 (1) Spring/Summer 1999, 181 - 197; (ISSN: 1218-7364).

‘Re-invoking Herbert Simmons: Man Walking on Eggshells of Radical Narrative,’ Autumn 1999 'Forgotten Voices' special issue, HJEAS: The Hungarian Journal of English and American Studies, 5 (2) Autumn/Winter 1999, 109 - 126; (ISSN: 1218-7364).

‘Journeying with Bachelard, Bourdieu and Others toward Bunting: Revisiting the Margins of Forgetfulness,’ Autumn 1999 'Forgotten Voices' issue, HJEAS: The Hungarian Journal of English and American Studies, 5 (2) Autumn/Winter 1999, 11 - 37; (ISSN: 1218-7364).

‘Contextualizing B. S. Johnson (1933-73): the British novel's forgotten voice of protest,’ The Anachronist ( Eõtvõs Loránd University , Budapest ), Winter 1998, 165 - 92, (ISSN: 1210-2589).

Electronic/Online Publications

‘Teaching the Contemporary: Fiction.’ English Subject Centre project, Prof. Philip Tew & Dr. Mark Addis. Completed & published online April 2007.

'Johnson, B. S.' The Literary Encyclopedia. 9 Mar. 2003. The Literary Dictionary Company. 11 November 2005.

EXTRACTS FROM REVIEWS

In February 2002 in the TLS Andrew Hassam describes B. S. Johnson: A Critical Reading as demonstrating 'authority and dexterity.' Hassam says Tew 'recovers Johnson's novels as a . . . coherent philosophical-literary project, which places him [Johnson] as a more significant writer in post-war literary history than has hitherto been appreciated.' In 2004 John Brannigan in 'Post-1945 Fiction,' in the Year's Work in English Studies considers Tew's book as variously 'ambitious and persuasive,' 'a detailed and sagacious reading of his novels in relation to the modalities of philosophical realism,' and concludes that 'he recovers . . . precisely and fully . . . the texture of Johnson's writings.'

In The Higher on May 2004 in 'Literary Collisions of Past and Future' Daniel Lea says of Contemporary British Fiction (Polity, 2003) a collection co-edited by Tew, offers' insightful, perceptive and nuanced analysis,' adding that 'its scope and breadth suggests that it will be mined for academic course material for years to come. Certainly it is a significant advance in a field under-endowed with fresh material.' He concludes that 'the collection is a landmark in the critical analysis of current literary culture.'

In September 2004 in the TLS, Gary Day reviews Tew’s The Contemporary British Novel, and comments on 'his genuine desire to listen to writers, to discover what they are actually saying, makes a refreshing change from criticism which marks them as good or bad according to their take on heterogeneity. Tew does not pretend to give us a comprehensive account of the contemporary British novel, but ‘a cartography of some of its salient co-ordinates’. We should thank him for bringing us so far and for the means to go much further.'

In reviewing The Contemporary British Novel in the Journal of Critical Realism (vol. 5 2006) Leigh Price notes that ‘Tew usefully explores how British authors have used a variety of writing styles and techniques to develop a trend in contemporary fiction and criticism away from postmodernism towards realism.’ She adds that ‘The potential for crude categorisations to be used for reverse prejudiceis an increasingly acknowledged phenomenon and Tew is right to point this out. [ . . . ] Tew is in the company of Bhaskar in suggesting that we should be aware of the suffering of the oppressors.’

EDITORSHIPS OF JOURNALS & BOOK SERIES

Joint Managing Editor, Symbiosis: A Journal of Anglo-American Literary Relations (ISSN: 1754-0984). Link: http://www.symbiosisonline.org.uk/ (FROM 2007)

Joint Managing Editor, Critical Engagements (ISSN: 1754-0984) (FROM 2008).

Editorial Board, Literary London online journal (ISSN: 1744-0807) (from 2005)

New British Fiction, joint commissioning editor of series (with Dr. Rod Mengham, Jesus College, Cambridge), Palgrave Macmillan (initially 15 volumes) - series underway. Tew has completed volume on Zadie Smith. Link: http://us.macmillan.com/series/NewBritishFiction

Continuum Handbooks for Literature and Culture, Series Co-editor (with Steve Barfield, University of Westminster); ten volumes, each a guide to major literary periods and recent research and teaching approaches series underway.

Link:http://www.continuumbooks.com/Series/default.aspx?SeriesID=2124&CountryID=2&ImprintID=2

BRUNEL ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

Professor of English, School of the Arts, Brunel University.

Director, Brunel Centre for Contemporary Writing (BCCW).

Academic Coordinator/Admissions Tutor for postgraduate research students in English (MPhil/PhD)

Current Teaching: BA – Late Twentieth Century Writing 1969 – 2001; Module Leader: Special Topic (Post-Millennial British Fiction 2001 - Present); MA Programme – Module Leader: Writing Now; Popular Genres; Contemporary Literature; BA Dissertation Supervision.

MPhil / PhD Supervision: Various.

Liaison UK Network for Modern Fiction Studies, Symbiosis and BCCW

MEMBERSHIP OF PROFESSIONAL ORGANISATIONS

Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (elected): subscription.

Member Royal Society of Literature (elected): subscription.

North East Modern Languages Association (NEMLA): subscription.

ESSE [European Society for the Study of English]: subscription.

UK Network for Modern Fiction Studies: by election; elected as Director until February 2011.

CONFERENCE PAPERS/PUBLIC SPEAKING

Recent Papers/Public Presentations - International Events

‘Exploring the Traumatic in Ian McEwan’s Later Fiction,’ Invited Guest Speaker, Taipei Medical University, Dec. 2 – 3 2008 [two-part lecture].

‘Considering the Case of Hong Ying's K the Art of Love: Home, Exile and Reconciliations,’ Keynote Plenary Address, ‘”In the Shadows of Empire:” Second International Asian American and Asian British Literature’ Conference, Institute of European and American Studies, Academia Sinica, Taiwan, Nov. 28 – 29 2008;

‘Considering Will Self: Neo or Traditional Satirist?’ ‘Satire Today,’ conference, Marymount Manhattan College, New York, June 12-13 2008.

‘Walt Whitman and the Great Exhibition: Quintessential Anglophilia?’ NEMLA 39^th Annual Convention, University of Buffalo, April 10 – 13 2008, Buffalo, NY;

‘Trends and Contexts for Contemporary British Fiction,’ Keynote Plenary Address ‘Contemporary British Fiction, ‘One-Day International Video Conference, March 19 2007; British Council, Spring House, London linked with Tunis, Karachi, & Cairo.

‘B. S. Johnson’s Final Posthumous Novel (See the Old Lady Decently [1975]): Marginalized Subjectivities, Post-coloniality, Class and Subjection.’ Paper and Panel Convenor ‘Radical Concepts/Radicalized Subjectivities: Re-Reading Reality in British Fiction from 1969,’ panel; NEMLA Baltimore, March 1-4, 2007.

‘Contemporary Post-millennial British Novel: the Traumatological,’ Invited Keynote Speaker Novi Sad International Literary Festival, 28 Aug – 2^nd Sept. 2006.

‘Meta-realism: Considering Modernity’s (& Late Modernity’s) Crisis of Value and Judgment.’ Invited Keynote Address, Modernity: the Crisis of Value and Judgment Conference, University of Bucharest. 1-3 June, 2006

'Theorizing Contemporary British Fiction,' Novi Sad Literary Society, Invited Guest Speaker, 30 Oct. 2005.

'Contemporary British Fiction: An Overview,' Plenary Lecture and Press Interviews, Belgrade International Book Fair, 29 - 30 Oct. 2005.

'B. S. Johnson and the BBC: the Initial Contacts,' 'Reading Without Maps? Cultural Landmarks in a Post-Canonical Era: A Tribute to Gilbert Debusscher' Symposium, Invited Plenary Paper, Free University of Brussels, 20 - 22 Oct. 2005.

'Meta-Realism/Critical Realism and a Sense of Value: Kant's "Dialectic of the Aesthetical Judgement" and Literary/Critical Judgment in the Work of Roy Bhaskar and Edward Pols' Keynote address, 'A Matter of Taste,' Annual Conference, English Department, University of Bucharest, 2 - 4 Jun., 2005.

‘Kurt Vonnegut's Mother Night (1961), God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater (1965), and Slaughterhouse-Five. (1969): War, Comedy and a Notion of Evil,’ the Northeast Modern Language Association (NEMLA) Convention, 31st March - 2nd April, 2005, Cambridge, Massachusetts, hosted by Boston College.

‘History, Myth and Chronotopes in Contemporary in British Fiction,’ Chronotopes of the Contemporary panel, ESSE/7 Conference, Zaragoza , 8-12 September 2004

‘Conceptualizing the Contemporaneous and the Contemporary: Chronotopic Contemporaneity and British Fiction,’ Plenary Keynote address, HUSSE 7 Conference [Hungarian Society for the Study of English] University of Veszprém, Hungary 27-29 January, 2005

‘Interpreting Myth in the Contemporary British Novel, or Understanding the Mythopoeic,’ NEMLA Convention, Pittsburgh, 3 - 7 March 2004.

‘Contemporary British Fiction, the Mythopoeic and Jim Crace,’ Guest Lecture University of Tirana, 8-9 July 2003.

‘Contemporary British Fiction: Reading Beyond Postmodernism,’ Faculty of Arts open lecture: Friday 11 April, 2003 ‘Defining the Contemporary in Contemporary British Fiction,’ University of Regina.

Invited Lecturer and Speaker: Faculty of English Seminar and Lecture Series for Faculty Staff and Postgraduate School, University of Regina 27th March - 15 April 2003 Three-Day Literature Seminar in Kostelec Nad Cernymi Lesy, British Council, Czech Republic, Moderator and Lecturer; British Council Seminar Series in Czech Republic, 27 Feb - 3 March, 2003.

‘Contemporary British Fiction and Meta-Realist Thought,’ Philosophical Faculty, Charles University , Prague , invited speaker at faculty seminars 3 - 7 March, 2003.

‘A new sense of reality? A new sense of the text? The literary critical field and radical realism,’ paper at ESSE 6, 30 Aug. - 3 Sept., 2002, Strasbourg .

‘Death and the Metaphysics of Finitude in Contemporary British Fiction,’ panel convenor and chairperson, North-Eastern Modern Languages Association Annual Conference, Toronto, 11 - 14 April, 2002.

‘Subverting the Spectacle of Death: Will Self's Satiric Pathology,’ paper for ‘Death and the Metaphysics of Finitude in Contemporary British Fiction,’ panel NEMLA Convention, Toronto, , 13 April, 2002.

‘Experimental British and American Fiction 1955 - 1975: Recovering Radical Realism,’ panel convenor and chairperson, North-Eastern Modern Languages Association Annual Conference, Buffalo, New York State, 8 April 2000.

‘Re-Asserting a Historicity of Representation in Malcolm Lowry's Ultramarine,’ paper for NEMLA Convention, Buffalo, New York State, 7 April 2000.

Recent Papers/Public Presentations - National Events

‘Will Self: Visions of Contemporary London’ Literary London Annual Conference, Brunel University (supported by the British Academy), July 2 – 4 2008.

‘Re-reading the DC Universe(s) of Super Heroes: Tracing the Spectacular, Malice and Sacrifice through the Crisis on Infinite Earths (1985),’ Keynote Plenary Address, ‘Paraliterary Narratives’ Conference, University of Northampton, Avenue Campus Friday, June 6 2008.

‘Contemporary Urban Narratives: Will Self and Zadie Smith,’ invited speaker, Research Seminar, University of Exeter (Cornwall Campus) Nov. 22 2008.

‘Trauma, the Traumatological and the Postmillennial,’ Keynote Plenary Address, ‘Millennial Fictions: Interdisciplinary Approached,’ July 6 - 7 2007; UK Network for Modern Fiction Studies and Brunel University.

‘Trauma, the Traumatological and the Postmillennial,’ Co-organizer and Keynote Address, Millennial Fictions: Interdisciplinary Two-Conference, 6^th - 7th July 2007; Network for Modern Fiction Studies at Brunel University.

‘The Violence of J. G. Ballard’s Postmillennial Fiction: the Possibilities of Sacrifice, the Certainties of Trauma.’ Keynote Plenary Address. ‘From Shanghai to Shepperton,’ Two-Day International Conference on J.G. Ballard, UEA 5 – 6^th May 2007.

‘Philip Tew in Conversation with Jim Crace.’ Public Reading and Discussion. Waterstone’s Bookshop, 82 Gower Street, London, WC1E 6EQ. 24^th April, 2007.

‘9/11, the Titanic and Some Notes on Traumatological Post-Millennial Fiction,’ Plenary Keynote Address, ‘Representations of 9/11 in Contemporary Narrative,’ Interdisciplinary Conference; University of Hull, University of Westminster, & UK Network for Modern Fiction Studies,, 16^th – 17^th March, 2007.

‘An Economy of Finitude: Melete Thanatou & “Imagination Dead Imagine.”’ invited speaker and organizer, ‘Samuel Beckett & Death,’ International Conference in Honour of Samuel Beckett’s Centenary, University of Northampton, 1^st – 3^rd December 2006.

‘Meta-Realism in the Postmillennial Moment,’ Paper & Panel Coordinator ‘Relevance of the Real,’ ESSE-8, Institute of Advanced Studies, University of London, 29 Aug. – 2 Sept. 2006

‘Zadie Smith’s London.’ Literary London Conference, Greenwich University, July 2006.

‘Sexual Relationships and the Dynamics of Procreation in Jim Crace's Six (2003),’ paper, ‘Near and Dear: Friends and Family Figures in Contemporary Fiction,’ conference, University of Hull, 14th May 2005.

‘Combining Post-Coloniality and Pedagogy: Radical Motifs in B. S. Johnson's Albert Angelo (1964) and See the Old Lady Decently (1975),Plenary Keynote Address at ‘Recovering the Truth: B .S. Johnson and British Literature from the Late 1950s to the Early 1970s,’ Conference, University Of Westminster, 20 November, 2005.

‘A Phenomenology of the Suffering of Others: the Case of Ralph Ernest Gorse,’ One-Day Symposium on Patrick Hamilton, King's College, Cambridge, 27 November, 2004.

Chair of plenary panel at ‘Perspectives on Ian McEwan,’ A One-Day International Conference, University of East Anglia, 15 Nov., 2003.

Organizer and Co-ordinator ‘Radicality, Criticism and Reality,’ A One-Day Conference, The Centre for Critical Practice, UCE, 27 Sept. 2003.

‘Maybe it's because I'm a Londoner: The London Writers' Literary London,’ Keynote Address for Literary London Conference: Representations of London in Literature, Goldsmith's College, London, 25 - 27 July 2003.

'Meta-Realism: Literary-Critical Co-ordinates for the Twenty First Century,' for ‘Condition of the Subject conference,’ Senate House, University of London, 17 - 19 July, 2003.

‘How Do We Know It's Good?’ panel: presentation, ‘Condition of the Subject conference,’ Senate House, University of London, 17 - 19 July, 2003.

Organizer and Coordinator, ‘Re-reading the Ruins: Samuel Beckett's Short Drama, Prose & Other Fragments II,’ Symposium, Westminster University May 31st 2003.

‘A Conversation with Jim Crace, ‘UCE, 13 Feb. 2003.

'Meta-Realism, or All You Need to Know About the Demise of Postmodernism,' Readership Lecture, UCE, 11 Dec. 2002.

‘A Conversation with Will Self,’ Jesus College, Cambridge, 14 Nov. 2002.

‘Tangible and Ideological Metaphoricity in B. S. Johnson,’ ‘New Visions: The Writer in Literature and Criticism,’ conference, University of East Anglia, 8-9 February 2002.

‘The Comic and Bergsonian Possibilities in Beckett's The Three Dialogues: A Laughable Text?’ ‘Beckett's Three Dialogues: A Critical Reappraisal’ one-day conference, South Bank University, 10 Nov., 2001.

‘Will Self's Pathological Crises of Environment and Masculinity,’ ‘Posting the Male,’ conference, John Moores University, Liverpool, 24 – 26 Sept. 2000.

‘Exploring an Economy of Exegetical Structures through Cassirer and Bourdieu,’ 'Metaphors of Economy' conference, University of East Anglia, 30 June -1 July, 2000.

‘Truth and Class: Recovering B. S. Johnson from the B.B.C. Archive,’ ‘ The Remains of the Day: Theorizing Archival Marginalia,’ conference, South Bank University, London , 1 June 2000

‘A Phenomenology of the Suffering of Others: the Case of Ralph Ernest Gorse.’ Critical Engagements. 1, 1 (2007): 291 – 310. [ISSN: 1754-0984] ‘James Thomson’s London: Beyond the Apocalyptic Vision of the City?’ A Mighty Mass of Brick and Smoke: Victorian and Edwardian Representations of London. Lawrence Phillips (ed.). Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi, 2007: 107 – 29 (ISBN: 9789042022904).