Title:  Principal Lecturer, Course Leader for English Literature BA, PhD Programme Director (Admissions)

Department: English, Linguistics and Cultural Studies     

Address: 32-38 Wells Street, London, W1T 3UW

Tel: 020 7911 5000 ext 2398

Email: s.avery@westminster.ac.uk

Biography

Simon joined the University of Westminster in September 2007 and is Principal Lecturer in English Literature and Course Leader for the Single Honours Degree. Along with Leigh Wilson, he also co-ordinates the PhD programme for the School of English, Linguistics and Cultural Studies.
     
Simon holds an MA in Victorian Studies (University of Nottingham), a PhD in nineteenth-century literature and politics (Anglia Ruskin University), and a postgraduate certificate in learning and teaching in higher education (University of Hertfordshire). Before coming to Westminster, Simon taught in the School of Humanities at the University of Hertfordshire (1999-2007) and the Department of English and Drama at Anglia Ruskin (1996-1999), where he was also Researcher on a HEFCE-funded project working to develop the graduate skills of humanities students.

Simon is module leader for Studies in Travel Writing, Writing and Sexuality and Studies in Modern Poetry. He also teaches on Victorian Explorations (MA), Reading Gothic and The Victorians. He would welcome enquiries from postgraduates looking to work on aspects of nineteenth-century literature, politics and culture; poetry; gender and sexuality; and life writing.

Research Interests

Simon’s research interests lie in the areas of nineteenth-century literature, politics and culture; modern poetry; life writing; and contemporary historical fiction. He is a member of the British Association of Victorian Studies and reviews editor for the Journal of Browning Studies.

Simon is currently working on an article on Pat Barker’s Life Class, a new edition of Thomas Hardy’s The Return of the Native, a political biography of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and a book-length study of the 1890s.

Publications

BOOKS

Elizabeth Barrett Browning: Writers and Their Work (Northcote House, 2010)

Mary Coleridge: Selected Poems (Shearsman, 2010)
     [http://www.shearsman.com/pages/books/catalog/2010/coleridge.html]

The Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (Pickering and Chatto, 2010): Associate Editor

Thomas Hardy: A Reader’s Guide to Essential Criticism (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009)

Lives of Victorian Literary Figures: The Brownings (Pickering and Chatto, 2004)

Elizabeth Barrett Browning (co-authored with Rebecca Stott) (Longman, 2003)

Writing with Style (ed. with Rebecca Stott, 2001)

Innovations in Teaching English and Textual Studies (ed. with Cordelia Bryan and Gina Wisker)(Routledge/SEDA, 1999)


ARTICLES AND CHAPTERS

‘Re-reading EBB: Trends in Elizabeth Barrett Browning Criticism’, The Journal of Browning Studies 1 (2010), 5-13.

‘Mapping Political History: Elizabeth Barrett Browning and nineteenth-century historiography, Victorian Review 33.2 (2007), 17-33 [nominated for the Donald Gray Prize 2008]

‘Casa Guidi Neighbours: Eliza Ogilvy, Elizabeth Barrett Browning and poetry of the Risorgimento,’ Browning Society Notes 32 (2007), 55-73.

‘Telling It Slant: Promethean, Whig, and Dissenting Politics in Elizabeth Barrett’s Poetry of the 1830s,’ Victorian Poetry 44.4 (Winter 2006), 405-424.

‘From The Da Vinci Code to The Time Traveler’s Wife: Explorations in teaching contemporary bestsellers,’ English Subject Centre Newsletter 10 (June 2006), 4-19.

‘Teaching Writing Within a Discipline,’ co-authored with Tory Young, in Academic Writing: Theories and Practices, ed. Lisa Ganobcsik-Williams, Palgrave, 2006, 85-97.

‘Improving Spoken and Written English: From Research to Practice,’ co-authored with Cordelia Bryan, Teaching in Higher Education 6(2), 2001, 169-182.

‘“Tantalising Glimpses”: The Intersecting Lives of Eleanor Marx and Mathilde Blind,’ in Eleanor Marx: Life, Work, Contacts, ed. John Stokes, Ashgate 2000, 173-187.

‘“Some Strange and Spectral Dream”: The Brontës’ Manipulation of the Gothic Mode,’ Brontë Society Transactions 23:2 (1998), 120-135.


REFERENCE WORKS

1000 Key Moments: Books, ed. Lucy Daniel (Cassell, 2007): 14 entries on fin-de-siècle and 20th/21st century fiction, including The Time Machine, Maurice, Mrs Dalloway, Life of Pi, The Da Vinci Code and The Lovely Bones.

The Continuum Encyclopaedia of British Literature, ed. Steven R. Serafin and Valerie Grosvenor Myer (Continuum 2003); 6 essays on the Brontës, Elizabeth Gaskell and Victorian women’s poetry.

The Cambridge Guide to Women’s Writing in English (Cambridge UP, 1999): 8 entries on Romantic and Victorian women poets.

The Literary Encyclopedia (www.LitEncyc.com): essays on Mary Coleridge, ‘Michael Field’ and Mathilde Blind.