Education

• 1992-95:
  Goldsmiths' College, University of London
  BA with First Class Honours in English and History. Dissertation title: The Sea, Seamen, and English Literature; 1700-1750.
• 1995-96:
  School of English and Drama, Queen Mary, University of London.
  MA in 'Modern English Studies: Writing and Society, 1700-1820'. Dissertation title: The Poetry of Anti-Slavery; 1787-94.
• 1996-2000:
  School of English and Drama, Queen Mary, University of London.
  PhD, supervised by Dr Markman Ellis.
  Thesis title: The Rhetoric of Sensibility: Argument, Sentiment, and Slavery in the Late Eighteenth Century. [Read More]
• From 2009:
  The Open University
  I am studying part-time towards a BSc degree in Natural Sciences with the Open University. In addition to modules in basic life sciences (biology and biochemistry), I am taking modules in environment, evolution, and ecology. I am currently taking courses at undergraduate level 3.

[Back To Top]

Current Employment:

• From October 2006:
  Reader in English Literature, School of Humanities, Kingston University, Surrey, United Kingdom.
  "Reader" is a British academic grade approximately equivalent to the international grade "Associate Professor".

• January 2001 - September 2006:
  Lecturer/Senior Lecturer in English, School of Humanities, Kingston University, Surrey, United Kingdom.

• Undergraduate Teaching: I have taught on, contributed to, or am developing the following courses:
  • LEVEL ONE: 'Aspects of English'; 'Reading Fiction'; 'Foundations of Poetry and Drama'; 'Writing With Style'.
  • LEVEL TWO: 'Advanced Research Skills'; 'Critical Introduction to English Literature'; 'Gothic Fiction'; 'Romantic Vision'; 'Satire and Sentiment: Eighteenth-century Literature'.
  • LEVEL THREE: 'Empire and Literature, 1600-1800'; 'Literary London'; 'Critical Introduction to World Writing in English'; 'Jane Austen'; 'Writing and Environment'.

• Postgraduate Teaching:
  • I am the Director of Graduate Research
  • I have taught on Kingston's MA in Nineteenth-Century Literature, MA in Popular Literature, and MA in English Literature
  • MA modules I have taught include 'Empire and its Aftermath', 'Gender and Sexuality', 'British Science Fiction', 'Imagining Empire', 'Research Skills I: Foundations of Postgraduate Study' and 'Research Skills II: Extended Postgraduate Skills'
  • I led the team that created and validated Kingston's current MA in English Literature
  • I run the postgraduate research skills seminars.
  • I have supervised to completion two MA by Research students and one PhD student.
  • I am currently supervising one PhD student whose thesis is on women in the eighteenth-century black community in London.
  • I am currently leading a Research Informed Teaching project to produce a large body of on-line research skills training materials for English and Creative Writing.

• Research Degree Completions:
  • Claire Jones, ‘A Pretty Choice Set of Devils’: The Actress in the Eighteenth Century (MA by Research and Dissertation, 2006)
  • Rahul Sharma, John Keats and the Gradation Principle (MA by Research and Dissertation, 2008)
  • Jarrad Keyes, The Logics of Dissolution: Delineating the Urban Problematic in Contemporary British Literature (PhD, 2010)

• Management: I hold or have held the following management roles:
  • Director of Graduate Research (current)
  • Chair, Module Review and Development Committee (current)
  • Member, English Research Strategy Committee (current)
  • Member, Faculty Research Committee (current)
  • Member, Faculty Research Degrees Committee (current)
  • Postgraduate Research Student Co-ordinator for English Literature and Creative Writing
  • Admissions Tutor for English Literature and Languages
  • Team Leader, validation and development of new MA in English Literature
  • Member, English Curriculum Review Committee
  • Member, Faculty Equipment Review Board
  • Member, English Module Guide Review Committee
  • Member, Faculty E-learning Committee
  • Many other ad hoc management roles

Previous Employment:

• Autumn 2000 - Spring 2003:
  Sessional Course Teacher, Institute of English Studies, University of London.
  • Course Title: MA in 'New and International Literatures in English'. I taught eighteenth-century Irish literature.
• Autumn 1999 - Spring 2002: Course Tutor; Birkbeck College Students' Union, University of London.
  • Course Title: 'Skills for Study'. (Study skills for undergraduate and postgraduate students.)
• Autumn 1998 - Autumn 2000: Graduate Teaching Assistant, Queen Mary, University of London.
  • Course Titles: 'The Emergence of Gothic fiction: 1760-1825' and 'Writing Empire; 1688-1807'
• Autumn 1996 - Spring 1997: Private Tutor (Agency: London Tutors). English History (1750-1945) to A' Level.

Between leaving school and going to university, a seven-year period, I had several jobs, ranging from the mundane to the (almost) exciting. While studying, I worked part-time. My work experience in these periods included:

• 1989-92: Deputy Manager of the Wizard Wine Warehouse, Croydon.
• 1988-89: maintaining fish-smoking kilns and sausage-making machines for the now defunct Team Equipment, Surrey.
• 1987-88: social action broadcasting with the Radio Trent Careline, Nottingham.
• And variously: erecting the big top for the Spanish National Circus during their tour of England, odd jobs and gardening, bar and restaurant work in England, Germany, and Denmark, working in posh shops such as Heals and Oddbins, drudgery such as filling shelves for Boots, Tesco, Kwiksave, etc, etc.

[Back To Top]

Publications

Monograph:

• British Abolitionism and the Rhetoric of Sensibility: Writing, Sentiment, and Slavery, 1760-1807 (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005). ISBN 1 4039 4626 4. [More Information]
  A monograph in which I examine the relationship between literature, rhetoric, and antislavery writing in the late eighteenth century.

  Reviews of British Abolitionism and the Rhetoric of Sensibility include those by:

  • Tobias Menely in 'Returning to Emotion, via the Age of Sensibility', Eighteenth-Century Life 34:1 (2010), 114-124
  • Lynn Festa in The Age of Johnson: A Scholarly Annual, 19 (2009), 333–7
  • Anthony John Harding in Romanticism, 13:1 (2007), 88-90
  • Joyce Green MacDonald in Eighteenth-Century Studies 41.1 (2007) 107-109
  • Orianne Smith, et al, in ‘XII The Nineteenth Century: The Romantic Period’ in The Year’s Work in English Studies, 86:1. (2007), 619-87, 639.
  • Deirdre Lynch in ‘Recent studies in the Restoration and eighteenth century’ in Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900, 47:3 (2007), 723-64
  • Vincent Carretta in Slavery and Abolition, 27:3 (2006), 397-9

Edited Books and Journals:

• 'Olaudah Equiano: African or American?', edited special feature in 1650-1850: Ideas, Æsthetics, and Inquiries in the Early Modern Era, vol 17 (2010). Includes essays by Sarah Brophy, Brycchan Carey, Angelo Costanzo, Tara Czechowski, and Shaun Regan. ISBN 0 4046 4417 1. [More Information]
• Slavery and Antislavery: a Special Edition of the Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies, 31:2 (June 2008). Edited with an introduction by Brycchan Carey.
• Slavery and the Cultures of Abolition: Essays Marking the British Abolition Act of 1807 (Essays and Studies in Romanticism Series, 2007), edited with an introduction by Brycchan Carey and Peter Kitson (Woodbridge: Boydell and Brewer, 2007). ISBN 1 8438 4120 7. [More Information]
• Discourses of Slavery and Abolition: Britain and its Colonies, 1760-1838, eds. Brycchan Carey, Markman Ellis, and Sara Salih (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004). ISBN 1 4039 1647 0. [More Information]
  In addition to co-editing the work, I contribute two parts:
  • 'Introduction' (with Sara Salih), pp. 1-8.
  • Chapter: '"The hellish means of Killing and Kidnapping": Ignatius Sancho and the Campaign Against the "abominable traffic for slaves"', pp. 81-95.

Articles in Refereed Journals:

• 'Olaudah Equiano: African or American?', in 1650-1850: Ideas, Æsthetics, and Inquiries in the Early Modern Era, vol 17 (2010): 229-48. [More Information]
• '"Equiano was a Christian? Who knew?": Teaching Secular Histories of the British Abolition Movement' in Religion, Secularity and Cultural Agency, eds. Anton Kirchhofer and Richard Stinshoff, Vol 74 of anglistik & englischunterricht (2010): 55-78
• ‘The Barbadian Origins of Quaker Antislavery’ in ARIEL: A Review of International English Literature, 38:1 (January 2007), 27-47. [ARIEL Home Page]
• 'Slavery and Romanticism' in Literature Compass: Romanticism Edited by Elizabeth Fay and Sharon Ruston, Volume 3, Issue 3 (2006): 397-408, 10.1111/j.1741-4113.2006.00327.x. [Read this article]
  • Also: 'Teaching & Learning Guide for: "Slavery and Romanticism"' in Literature Compass Volume 4, Issue 6 (2007): 1683-1688, 10.1111/j.1741-4113.2007.00495.x. [Read this article]
• 'John Wesley's "Thoughts Upon Slavery" and the Language of the Heart', The Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library of Manchester, 85:2-3 (Summer/Autumn 2003), 269-84. (This edition of the Bulletin is a special issue, subtitled: John Wesley: Tercentenary Essays. Proceedings of a Conference held at the University of Manchester, June 2003, edited by Jeremy Gregory.) [1. Read this article] [2. Bulletin Home Page]
• 'William Wilberforce's Sentimental Rhetoric: Parliamentary Reportage and the Abolition Speech of 1789', The Age of Johnson: A Scholarly Annual, 14 (2003), 281-305. [1. Read this article] [2. The Age of Johnson Home Page]
• '"The extraordinary Negro": Ignatius Sancho, Joseph Jekyll, and the Problem of Biography', British Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies, 26, 2 (Spring 2003), 1-13. [1. Read this article] [2. BSECS Home Page]

• ‘“The worse than Negro barbarity of the populace”: Ignatius Sancho witnesses the Gordon Riots’, in The Gordon Riots and British Culture, ed Ian Haywood (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2011), pp. 144–61.
• ‘Slavery and Abolition’, in Samuel Johnson in Context, ed. Jack Lynch (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), pp. 352-9.
• 'A Stronger Muse: Classical Influences on Eighteenth-Century Abolitionist Poetry' in Ancient Slavery and Abolition: From Hobbes to Hollywood ed Richard Alston, Edith Hall, and Justine McConnell (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), pp. 125-52. [More from OUP]
• 'Slavery, Empire, Race', in Teaching Romanticism, ed. David Higgins and Sharon Ruston (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), pp. 75-87. [More from Palgrave Macmillan]
• 'Inventing a Culture of Antislavery: Pennsylvania Quakers and the Germantown Protest of 1688' in Imagining Transatlantic Slavery ed. Cora Kaplan and John Oldfield (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), pp. 17-32. [More from Palgrave Macmillan]
• 'Hermione and the House-Elves Revisited: J. K. Rowling, Antislavery Campaigning, and the Politics of Potter’, in Reading Harry Potter Again: New Critical Essays, ed. Giselle Liza Anatol, (Santa Barbara: Praeger Publishers, 2009), pp. 159-73 [More from Praeger Publishers]
• '"Accounts of Savage Nations": The Spectator and the Americas', in Uncommon Reflections: Emerging Discourses in 'The Spectator', ed. Don Newman (Newark, DE: University of Delaware Press, 2005), pp. 129-49. [This article was awarded the Society of Early Americanists' Annual Essay Writing Prize, 2004]
• '"The hellish means of Killing and Kidnapping": Ignatius Sancho and the Campaign Against the "abominable traffic for slaves"', in Discourses of Slavery and Abolition, as above, pp. 81-95. [Read more]
• 'Hermione and the House Elves: the Literary and Historical Context of J.K.Rowling's Anti-slavery Campaign', in Reading Harry Potter: Critical Essays (Contributions to the Study of Popular Culture, No. 78), ed. Giselle Liza Anatol, (Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press, 2003), pp. 103-115. [More from Greenwood Press]

• 'The Depiction of the Slave Trade in Children's Books' in Books For Keeps, 166 (September 2007), 3-5.
• 'Slavers'. An article length review of Kenneth Morgan, et al, eds, The British Transatlantic Slave Trade, 4 Vols (London: Pickering and Chatto, 2003), in History Workshop Journal, 64 (Autumn 2007), 382-9. [1. Read this Article] [2. History Workshop Journal Home Page]

• 'Guernsey and the Slave Trade: A Reassessment' in Report and Transactions of La Société Guernesiaise, XXVII (2008), 360-74.
• 'The Pennsylvanian Origins of British Abolitionism' in The Historian (Spring 2007), 6-11.
• 'Olaudah Equiano: an African Slave in Guernsey' in The Review of the Guernsey Society, 59, 2 (Summer 2003), 47-50. [1. Read this article] [2. Guernsey Society Home Page]
• Brycchan Carey, 'Website', created August 1999, http://www.brycchancarey.com/
  Over 120 pages at present, on a wide range of academic and general topics. I currently receive around 25,000 hits per month across my main pages.

• 'Olaudah Equiano'. Entry in African American National Biography, eds. Henry Louis Gates Jr. et al, 8 vols (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), VI, pp. 191-3.
• 'Olaudah Equiano'. Entry in Gift of Story and Song: An Encyclopedia of African-American Literature, ed. Wilfred Samuels (New York: Facts on File, 2007), pp. 170-71.
• Three entries in The Encyclopedia of Emancipation and Abolition in the Transatlantic World, ed. Junius P. Rodriguez, 3 vols (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 2007).
  • 'Francis Hargrave', II, p. 285.
  • 'Beilby Porteus', II, pp. 428-9.
  • 'James Ramsay', II, pp. 446-8.
• Two entries in The Literary Encyclopedia
  • 'Sancho, Ignatius', found at: http://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=6027 (2005)
  • 'Wilberforce, William', found at: http://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=4714 (2005)
• Three entries in The Encyclopedia of the Romantic Era, 1760-1850, ed Chistopher John Murray, 2 vols (New York and London: Fitzroy Dearborn, 2004).
  • 'Thomas Day', I, pp. 265-6
  • 'Slavery and Emancipation', II, pp. 1057-9
  • 'Ann Yearsley', II, pp. 1239-40
• Two entries in C18th Bibliographies Online, ed. Jack Lynch, for The International Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies,
  • Olaudah Equiano' at http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/C18/biblio/equiano.html (2002)
  • Ignatius Sancho' at http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/C18/biblio/sancho.html (1999)
• 'Ignatius Sancho', in The Encyclopedia of Life Writing: Autobiographical and Biographical Forms, 2 vols, ed. Margaretta Jolly (London: Fitzroy Dearborn, 2001), II, pp. 775-76.

• Review of: Karina Williamson, Contrary Voices: Representations of West Indian Slavery, 1657-1834 (Kingston, JA: University of the West Indies Press, 2008) in Forum for Modern Language Studies 2010; doi: 10.1093/fmls/cqq067. Read this review
• Review of: Felicity A. Nussbaum, The Limits of the Human: Fictions of Anomaly, Race, and Gender in the Long Eighteenth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), in The Age of Johnson: A Scholarly Annual, 17 (2006), 461-63. [The Age of Johnson Home Page]
• Review of: Marcus Wood, Slavery, Empathy, and Pornography (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002) in BARS Bulletin and Review, 26 (September 2004), 34-5 [BARS Home Page]
• Review of: J.R. Piggot, Palace of the People: the Crystal Palace at Sydenham, 1854-1936 (London: Hurst and Company, 2004) in Literary London: Interdisciplinary Studies in the Representation of London, online at Literary London.
• Review of: James G. Basker (ed.), Amazing Grace: an Anthology of Poems about Slavery, 1660-1810 (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2002) in The New Rambler: the Journal of the Johnson Society of London, E VI (2002-3), 78-80. [Johnson Society of London Home Page]
• Review of: Helen Thomas, Romanticism and Slave Narratives: Transatlantic Testimonies (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000) in BARS Bulletin and Review, 22 (September 2002), 20-21. [BARS Home Page]
• Review of: Charlotte Sussman, Consuming Anxieties: Consumer Protest, Gender, and British Slavery, 1713-1833 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000) in Gender and History, 14, 1 (April 2002), 160-161. [Gender and History Home Page]

• Monograph: From Peace to Freedom: Quaker Rhetoric and the Birth of American Antislavery, 1658-1761 (New Haven: Yale University Press, forthcoming 2012). A monograph in which I examine how antislavery thought and rhetoric crystallised in the Quaker communities of London, Barbados, and Philadelphia. Status: in press, awaiting proofs. [More Information]
• Journal Article: ‘”Such is Bristol’s soul”: Re-reading Ann Yearsley’s Poem on the Inhumanity of the Slave Trade’ Tulsa Studies in Women’s Literature (forthcoming autumn 2012)
• Edited Book: Quakers and Slavery: 1658-1890. Essays from the 2010 ‘Quakers and Slavery’ conference, co-edited with Geoffrey Plank. (University of Indiana Press, forthcoming 2013). Status: contracted, preparing final submission of MS for summer 2012.
• Book Chapter: ‘To Force a Tear: Antislavery on the Eighteenth-Century London Stage’, in Affect and Abolitionism, ed Stephen Ahern (Farnham: Ashgate, forthcoming 2013)

• Journal Article: 'Slavery in the Cornish Literary Imagination'
• Monograph: Slavery and Environment. A monograph in which I examine the many ways in which eighteenth and nineteenth-century antislavery campaigners depicted slavery and the slave trade as an environmental catastrophe.
• Biography: Ignatius Sancho: London, Life, and Letters. A biography of Ignatius Sancho looking at the part he played in London life and in the world of letters.
• Monograph: Slavery and the British Literary Imagination. A monograph which examines the ways in which slavery and the slave trade were imagined and written about in Britain's regions.

[Back To Top]

Editorial and Peer Review

Editorial:

• Assistant Editor of Literary London: Interdisciplinary Studies in the Representation of London
  This e-journal provides a common forum for scholars and students engaged specifically in the study of London and literature.
  Literary London: Journal Homepage
• Member of the editorial board: Continuum Studies in Urban literature.
• Member of the editorial board: Early Caribbean Literary History (University of Chicago Press).

• I have reviewed manuscript articles for the following journals: Atlantic Studies; Auto/Biography; Eighteenth-Century Fiction; Eighteenth-Century Studies; The European Romantic Review; Literary London; The Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies; Literature Compass; The Scandinavian Journal of History; Studies in Travel Writing; Trends in Ecology & Evolution; Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature.
• I have reviewed book manuscripts and/or proposals for the following publishers: Broadview Press; Oxford University Press; Routledge; University of Missippippi Press.

[Back To Top]

Media

Radio and Television Appearances:

• Television Interview: 'Marking the Abolition of the British Slave Trade', BBC World News
  Broadcast: BBC World TV on 27 March 2007, 17.40 GMT (Live).
• Radio Interview: 'Slavery in Cornwall', Pirate FM News
  Broadcast: Pirate FM News (Cornwall, UK) on 25 March 2007, repeated hourly.
• Radio Interview: 'Slavery in Guernsey', BBC Radio Guernsey News
  Broadcast: BBC Radio Guernsey News (Guernsey) on 26 March 2007. Short version at 8.25am; long version at 10.05am.
• Radio Interview: 'Slavery and Abolition in Cambridgeshire', BBC Radio Cambridgeshire
  Broadcast: 'The Afternoon Show' on BBC Radio Cambridgeshire (Cambridge, UK) on 19 March 2007, 3pm-4pm (Live).
• Radio Interview: ‘Olaudah Equiano’ on Making History, presented by Sue Cook
  Broadcast: BBC Radio 4 (UK) on 6 April 2004, 3pm.
• 1987-88: I worked for one year as a 'Community Link Worker' with the social action broadcasting team Radio Trent Careline in Nottingham. Careline is attached to the local commercial station Radio Trent (now TrentFM), and makes regular broadcasts on community issues while also offering a telephone helpline. I made daily live and prerecorded radio broadcasts, including interviewing community members and leaders. Visit Careline Online

• Newspaper Article: 'A Shameful History', by Chris Morvan
  The Guernsey Press and Star, (23 March 2007), p.21. Morvan's article discusses and cites from my work on Equiano in Guernsey.
• Newspaper Interview: 'The stars, the moon and music from a balloon: rising stars in the arts', by Anna Fazackerley
  The Times Higher Education Supplement, 1,755 (11 August 2006), pp.8-9.

[Back To Top]

Awards, Prizes, Qualifications, Affiliations, Fellowships, and Indicators of Esteem

Professional Qualifications:

• 2003: Postgraduate Certificate in Learning and Teaching in Higher Education.

• 2004: Society of Early Americanists' Annual Essay Writing Prize, 2004.
  Awarded for the essay '"Accounts of Savage Nations": The Spectator and the Americas'
  Website of the Society of Early Americanists

• 2010: British Academy Overseas Conference Grant. £500 to support travel to the conference of the American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA, in March 2010.
• 2010: Arts and Humanities Research Council Research Leave Grant. £29,392 to support the completion of my project 'Quaker Rhetoric and Transatlantic Antislavery, 1657-1761'
• 2007: British Academy 'Overseas Conference Grant'. £500 to support my attendance at The Fourth Annual Conference of the Association for the Study of the Worldwide African Diaspora (ASWAD), University of the West Indies, Cave Hill, Barbados, in October 2007.
• 2005: British Academy 'British Conference Grant'. A substantial cash award to support the conference Literary London 2005.
• 2005/06: HEFCE 'Promising Researchers Fellowship Scheme'. A substantial cash award to support a twelve-month fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania.
• 2005: British Academy 'Overseas Conference Grant'. A cash award to support my attendance at The Thirty-sixth Annual Meeting of the American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, Las Vegas, USA, in March 2005.
• 2004: British Academy 'Overseas Conference Grant'. £225 to support my attendance at The Thirty-fifth Annual Meeting of the American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, Boston, Massachusetts, USA, in March 2004.
• 2003: British Academy 'Overseas Conference Grant'. £640 to support my attendance at The Eleventh International Congress on the Enlightenment, UCLA, Los Angeles, USA, in August 2003.
• 2003: British Academy 'British Conference Grant'. A substantial cash award to support the conference Olaudah Equiano: Representation and Reality.
• 2002: Sabbatical, awarded from the competitive Kingston University Research Investment Fund. This research leave was awarded in addition to the faculty's existing sabbatical scheme.
• 2001: British Academy 'British Conference Grant'. A substantial cash award to support the conference Discourses of Slavery and Abolition: Writing in Britain and its Colonies, 1660-1838.
• 1996-1999: British Academy three-year PhD studentship.
• 1995-1996: British Academy one-year MA studentship.

• 2005/06: Research Associate of the McNeil Center for Early American Studies, University of Pennsylvania.
• 2005/06: HEFCE 'Promising Researchers Fellowship Scheme'. To support the above.

• Elected Officer: British Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies. [BSECS Home Page]
  • I have been the society's Treasurer since January 2010.
  • I was the academic organiser of the annual meeting of the society for three years between 2007 and 2009.
  • Committee member from 2006
• Elected Officer: The Literary London Society. [LLS Home Page]
  • I have been the society's President since July 2011.
• Member: British Association for Romantic Studies [BARS Home Page]
• Member: The Society of Early Americanists [SEA Home Page]
• Member: The Early Caribbean Society [ECS Home Page]
• Member: The Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment (UK) [ASLE-UK Home Page]

• 2006: External Advisor for the MA in London Studies at the University of Westminster
• 2007: Advisor to the Royal Mail over the design of postage stamps commemorating the abolition of the slave trade
• 2011: External Examiner for George Newberry's PhD thesis on "Representations of Race in British Science and Culture" at Sheffield University, June 2011.
• 2012 External Advisor for the MA in Literary London at Greenwich University
• 2012-2016: External Examiner for the BA in English Literature at the University of Northumbria

[Back To Top]

Conferences Organised

• Quakers and Slavery: An International Interdisciplinary Conference
  I was one of the two principal organisers of this conference, co-hosted by the McNeil Center for Early American Studies, Swarthmore College, and Haverford College in November 2010
  
  • Visit the Conference Website

• Literary London: Interdisciplinary Studies in the Representation of London
  Between 2003 and 2011, I was one of the co-ordinating team for this annual conference for scholars and students engaged in the study of London and literature. I was partly or mainly responsible for organising Literary London conferences at Goldsmiths' College, University of London (2003), the Institute of English Studies, University of London (2004), Kingston University, London (2005), the University of Greenwich (2006), the University of Westminster (2007), Brunel University (2008), Queen Mary, University of London (2009), and the Institute of English Studies, University of London (2010 and 2011). In 2011, I was elected President of the new Literary London Society, and from then onwards I delegated responsibility for organising future conferences.
  • Visit The Literary London Website

• British Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies
  The BSECS conference is a major event, attracting 400-500 scholars from around the world. It is hosted by St Hugh's College, Oxford. I was the academic organiser of the annual meeting of the society for three years between 2007 and 2009.
  
  • Visit the BSECS Website

• Olaudah Equiano: Representation and Reality
  I conceived and organised this major international conference, held at Kingston University on Saturday 22 March 2003. The conference was supported by an award from the British Academy. Some of the papers have appeared together as 'Olaudah Equiano: African or American?', an edited special feature in 1650-1850: Ideas, Æsthetics, and Inquiries in the Early Modern Era, vol 17 (2010). Includes essays by Sarah Brophy, Brycchan Carey, Angelo Costanzo, Tara Czechowski, and Shaun Regan. ISBN 0 4046 4417 1. Click here for more information

• Discourses of Slavery and Abolition: Writing in Britain and its Colonies, 1660-1838
  I conceived and organised this major international conference, held at The Institute of English Studies, University of London, on 6-7 April 2001. The conference was supported by an award from the British Academy. Some of the papers from this conference appeared in Discourses of Slavery and Abolition: Britain and its Colonies, 1760-1838, eds. Brycchan Carey, Markman Ellis, and Sara Salih (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004). ISBN 1 4039 1647 0. Click here for more information

• Ignatius Sancho: Sensibility and Abolition: A Day Conference.
  I conceived and organised this international one-day conference, held on Saturday 20 March 1999 at Queen Mary, University of London.

[Back To Top]

Papers and Presentations

Here, I include all the papers and presentations I have given, or have agreed to give in the future. I include both academic papers, and presentations to community groups.

2012:

• ‘From Peace to Freedom: Colonial Quakers and the Origins of the Antislavery International, 1657–1758’
  At the International Slavery Museum, Liverpool (May)
• “‘To Friends beyond sea’, or, how London Quakers and Philadelphia Quakers played politics by mail”
  At The 43nd Annual Meeting of the American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, San Antonio, Texas, USA (March)
• ‘“The Grief of Divers Friends”, or, How Eighteenth-Century Quakers Turned Against Slavery’
  At the Bucks Historical Association, Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire (February)
• ‘From Peace to Freedom: Colonial Quakers and the Origins of the Antislavery International, 1657–1758’
  At the Institute for the Study of Slavery, University of Nottingham (February)
• ‘From Wheatfield to Wetland: the Ecology of Auburn in Oliver Goldsmith’s Deserted Village’.
  At The British Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies Annual Conference, St. Hugh’s College, Oxford (January)

• '"The Grief of Divers Friends". Quaker Rhetoric and the Origins of the Transatlantic Antislavery Movement
  At The Thirteenth International Congress on the Enlightenment, Graz, Austria (July)
• Invited Plenary Speaker
  '"To Force a Tear": British Abolitionism and the Eighteenth-century Stage.'
  At the BSECS Graduate Conference, Cambridge (June)
• 'When no man was his own: the Caribbean as transformative space in the writings of Ralph Sandiford and Benjamin Lay'
  At The 42nd Annual Meeting of the American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, Vancouver, Canada (March)
• Invited Speaker: The Joseph S. Schick Lecture in Language, Literature, and Lexicography
  '“We are against the traffik of men-body”: re-reading the 1688 Germantown Quaker protest against slavery'
  Indiana State University, Terre Haute, Indiana, USA (January)
• 'First Impressions: Mary Leapor's Crumble-Hall'
  At The British Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies Annual Conference, St. Hugh's College, Oxford (January)

• 'Voices in the Wilderness or a Loud Conversation? Rethinking The Early Quaker Debate about Slavery'
  At the Quaker History Group, Friends House, London (October)
• 'Outer space on the London stage: Aphra Behn’s Emperor of the Moon'
  At Literary London 2010, Institute of English Studies, University of London (July)
• 'Lunar Geese, Celestial Dew, and the Emperor of the Moon: Five Centuries of (Imaginary) Interplanetary Exploration'
  At the University of Vienna, Austria (May)
• Friends of the Oppressed: how a small group of American Quakers took the first stand against slavery
  At the Kingston Readers' Festival, Kingston-upon-Thames (May)
• '"These poor afflicted, tormented miserable Slaves!": Quaker discussions of the feelings of slaves in early Philadelphia'
  at The 41st Annual Meeting of the American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA (March)
• '"The power that giveth liberty and freedom": Uncovering the Origins of the Quaker Antislavery International'
  At the Wilberforce Institute for the Study of Slavery and Emancipation, University of Hull (February)
• '"A new discovery of a new world": the Moon and America.'
  At The British Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies Annual Conference, St. Hugh's College, Oxford (January)

• '"We contradict & are against this traffick of men-body": re-reading the first protest against the slave trade, Germantown, 1688.'
  At the School of English Research Seminar, University of St Andrews (November)
• 'Lunar Geese, Celestial Dew, and the Emperor of the Moon: Five Centuries of (Imaginary) Interplanetary Exploration'
  At the Kingston Readers' Festival, Kingston-upon-Thames (May)
• Invited Plenary Speaker
  '"You surpass Holland and Germany in this thing": The Transatlantic Implications of the 1688 Germantown Declaration'
  At The Collegium for African American Research Annual Conference, Breman, Germany (April)
• 'Abolishing the Slave Trade on the London Stage, 1760-1807'
  At the Museum of London in Docklands (March)
• '"The power that giveth liberty and freedom": the American prehistory of the British abolition movement'
  At the University of Northampton English Seminar (February)
• 'Literature and British Abolitionism: 1660-1807'
  At the University of Pau, France (January)

• Invited Keynote Speaker
  'The Moon and America: An Early Modern Conflation'
  At Trips to the Moon: Lunar Travel from Lucian to Kubrick, A Symposium, Royal Holloway, University of London (December)
• 'Equiano was a Christian? Who knew?’: Re-reading Secular Histories of the British Abolition Movement'
  At Postsecular Britain? Religion, Secularity, Cultural Agency, University of Oldenburg, Germany (November)
• 'A Quiet Rhetoric? Uncovering the Origins of the Quaker Antislavery International'
  At the The Queens' Arts Seminar, Queens' College, Cambridge (October)
• 'Writing the End of the British Slave Trade and British Slavery'
  Aux centres "Identités, Cultures, Territoires", EA 337 and Groupe de Recherche sur l'Eugénisme et le Racisme, Université Paris VII (September)
• 'Liminal Lives: Africans in London, 1500-1800'
  At Literary London 2008, Brunel University, London (July)
• '"The worse than Negro barbarity of the populace": Ignatius Sancho witnesses the Gordon Riots'
  At The Gordon Riots and British Culture: A One Day Conference, Roehampton University London (July)
• 'Olaudah Equiano and the trauma of enslavement'
  At Writing and Trauma: a Literary Symposium, the Rose of Kingston Theatre (May)
• 'Hermione and the House-elves Revisted: J.K. Rowling, Antislavery Campaigning, and the Politics of Potter'
  At the Kingston Readers' Festival, Kingston-upon-Thames (April)
• 'Olaudah Equiano: the Hackney Connection'
  At the Hackney Caribbean Elderly Organisation (March)
• 'Slavery and the Cornish Imagination'
  At The University of Exeter, Cornwall Campus, Falmouth (January)

• Invited Plenary Speaker
  'Modern Solutions to an Ancient Problem: Abolishing the British Slave Trade'
  At Slavery and the Classics, Royal Holloway, University of London (December)
• ‘Lost protests, hidden watermarks, and suspiciously neat handwriting: abolitionism in manuscript’
  At A Triangular Traffic: A Symposium on Literature, Slavery, and the Archive, University of Dundee (November)
• 'Alice Curwen in Barbados: A Seventeenth-century Quaker Abolitionist?'
  At Interrogations of Freedom: Memories, Meanings, Migrations: the annual meeting of The Association for the Study of the Worldwide African Diaspora (ASWAD), University of the West Indies, Cave Hill, Barbados (October).
• ‘Black London in the Age of Slavery’
  At the Kingston Museum, Kingston-upon-Thames (September)
• ‘New Worlds and Outer Spaces: America and the Moon in Seventeenth-Century Literature’
  At the Colonial and Postcolonial Spaces conference, Kingston University, London (September)
• Invited Plenary Speaker
  'Antislavery on the Eighteenth-Century London Stage'
  At Literary London: Interdisciplinary Studies in the Representation of London: 2007, University of Westminster (July)
• 'America in the Moon, or, the Moon in America: Terrestrial Empires and Celestial Speculations'
  At The Twelth International Congress on the Enlightenment, Montpellier, France (July)
• 'Truth or Lies ? The Interesting Case of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African'
  At The Twelth International Congress on the Enlightenment, Montpellier, France (July)
• '200 years after the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act: What has changed?'
  At the Kingston Racial Equality Council General Council Meeting, Kingston-upon-Thames (June)
• 'Did Germantown make a difference? Uncovering the origins of Quaker antislavery'
  At Slavery: Unfinished Business, The Wilberforce Institute for the Study of Slavery and Emancipation, University of Hull. (May)
• 'Slavery and Literature'
  At the Kingston Readers' Festival, Kingston-upon-Thames (April)
• ‘Cultures of Abolitionism’
  Talk given as part of The Transatlantic Slave Trade series at the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich (April)
• 'Abolition before abolitionism in Quaker Pennsylvania'
  At Abolitions, 1807-2007: ending the slave trade in the transatlantic world University of York (April)
• 'The 1807 Abolition Act Remembered'
  At 'The Bicentenary of the Abolition of the Slave Trade: an Event' Kingston University (March)
• 'The Churches and the Slave Trade: an Eighteenth-Century Problem'
  At Word and Spirit: 5 Lent lunch time talks about spirituality and literature, All Saints Church, Kingston-upon-Thames (March)
• 'The First Quaker Protests Against Slavery: George Fox in Barbados'
  In the "Cultural Networks" (Early Caribbean Society) session; at The Thirty-eighth Annual Meeting of the American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, Atlanta, Georgia, USA (March)
• 'Olaudah Equiano: an Eighteenth-Century African in Cambridgeshire'
  At Soham College, Soham, Cambridgeshire (March)
• ‘Inventing the Culture of Antislavery: Quaker Arguments Against Slavery, 1657-1720’
  At Imagining Transatlantic Slavery and Abolition, University of Southampton/Chawton House (March)
• 'The Churches and Slavery'
  For the 'Churches Together' group, Kew, London. (February)
• 'Teaching without Electronic Resources: Teaching the Eighteenth Century: a workshop'
  At The British Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies Annual Conference, St. Hugh's College, Oxford (January)

• 'Teaching Literary London in the Suburbs'
  At Teaching London: a two-day conference, Centre for Metropolitan History / University of Westminster (November)
• 'From Guinea to the Fens: Olaudah Equiano in Cambridgeshire'
  At Soham College, Soham, Cambridgeshire (October)
• 'Re-thinking the 1688 Germantown Antislavery Protest'
  At The British Group in Early American History, St. Anne's College, Oxford (September)
• '"To Friends beyond sea", or, how London Quakers and Philadelphia Quakers played politics by mail'
  At Literary London: Interdisciplinary Studies in the Representation of London: 2006, Greenwich University (July)
• '"The power that giveth liberty and freedom": reading the origins of Quaker antislavery rhetoric'
  At The Thirty-seventh Annual Meeting of the American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, Montreal, Canada (April)
• Invited Plenary Speaker
  'The Quaker Origins of Antislavery'
  At Abolition and Freedom, Long Island University, Brooklyn, NY, USA (March)
• 'New Worlds: voyaging the cislunar and transatlantic spaces of the mind'
  At The Annual Meeting of the South Central Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies 2006, Cape Canaveral, Florida, USA (February).
• 'Olaudah Equiano and the St. Giles Blackbirds: Black London in the Eighteenth Century'
  At the Meeting of the Sohemian Society, Soho, London (January)
• '"The New Intangible College": Publishing on the Internet: a workshop'
  At The British Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies Annual Conference, St. Hugh's College, Oxford (January)

• 'Friend William Edmundson: the First "Antislavery Apostle"?'
  At the 'Alternate Wednesday Brownbag Session' at the McNeil Center for Early American Studies, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA. (December)
• 'Performing Abolition: balladeers, theatricals, and antislavery sentiment in late eighteenth-century London'.
  At The Annual Meeting of the East Central American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies 2005, Annapolis, Maryland, USA. (October).
• 'One World, Two Lenses: Contrasting Classical and Biblical Approaches to Antique Slavery in the Late-Eighteenth-Century Abolition Debate'
  At The Congress of the Canadian Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, Trois-Rivières, Québec, Canada. (October).
• 'Real and Imagined: Harry Potter, Olaudah Equiano, and the Rhetoric of Antislavery'
  At The University of Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA. (October).
• '"Some good ballads to be sung about the streets": William Cowper's campaign against the slave trade'
  At Literary London: Representations of London in Literature: 2005, Kingston University (July).
• 'Ignatius Sancho: an Eighteenth-Century African Writer in Blackheath'
  At Greenwich People, a day event at the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich (June).
• 'Friends and Societies: Sociability and Antislavery in the Eighteenth-Century Atlantic World'
  At The Thirty-sixth Annual Meeting of the American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, Las Vegas, NV, USA (April)
• Roundtable Respondent in the panel 'Eighteenth-Century Studies and the World-Wide Web: A Roundtable'"
  At The Thirty-sixth Annual Meeting of the American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, Las Vegas, NV, USA (April)
• '"The happy state of West Indian slavery": James Tobin, Gordon Turnbull, and Sentimental Apologies for Slavery in the 1780s.'
  At The British Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies Annual Conference, St. Hugh's College, Oxford (January)

• 'Friends, Methodists, and Good Samaritans: Sentiment and Faith in the Eighteenth-Century Debate Over the Slave Trade
  At the 'Restoration to Reform' Seminar, Mansfield College, Oxford (November)
• '"That's for Tourists": Teaching London Literature to Londoners'
  At The North American Conference for British Studies, Philadelphia, PA, USA. (October)
• 'Ridiculous Prejudices and Foolish Distinctions: Thomas Day and the Children’s Campaign Against Slavery'
  At Romantic-Era Writing for Children, a Chawton House/Hallam Corvey conference at the University of London (May)
• 'Potter Politics: Harry, Ron, and Hermione's Long March to Number Ten'
  At the Kingston Readers' Festival, Kingston-upon-Thames (May)
• 'Ignatius Sancho: An African Composer in London'
  At the Handel House Museum, London (April)
• 'The Disguised Female Voice in The Letters of the Late Ignatius Sancho, an African'
  At The Thirty-fifth Annual Meeting of the American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, Boston, MA, USA (March)
• 'Olaudah Equiano and the Channel Islands Slave Trade'
  At Displacement, Relocation, Identity: Revisioning Histories of Slavery and Empire , University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne (March)
• 'The First Antislavery Society: Anthony Benezet, Granville Sharp, and John Wesley'
  At The British Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies Annual Conference, St. Hugh's College, Oxford (January)

• 'Marcus Wood's Slavery, Empathy, and Pornography: a reading'
  At The Enlightenment and Romanticism Reading Group at the The Institute of English Studies, University of London (November)
• 'Thomas Day's rhetoric of abolition in verse and prose'
  At The Eleventh International Congress on the Enlightenment, UCLA, Los Angeles, USA (August)
• 'Regicide and Republicanism Foreshadowed? American Anxieties in "The Spectator" (1711)'
  At The Eleventh International Congress on the Enlightenment, UCLA, Los Angeles, USA (August)
• 'Indian Kings and Merchants of Egypt: the empire comes to town in Addison and Steele's "Spectator" (1711-1714)'
  At Literary London: Interdisciplinary Studies in the Representation of London: 2003, Goldsmiths' College, University of London (July)
• 'John Wesley's "Thoughts Upon Slavery" and the language of the heart'
  At John Wesley: Life, Legend, and Legacy: A Tercentenary Celebration, Manchester University (June)
• 'Ignatius Sancho and Olaudah Equiano: reading early Black British life-writing'
  English Seminar; Roehampton, University of Surrey (April)
• 'Black Resistance to Slavery in Eighteenth-century London'
  At the PurehArt BAST (British Abolition of the Slave Trade) Heritage Images and Education Project, a part of English Heritage. Hosted by the Cabinet Office Black and Asian Network, London (March)
• '"While I was in this place...": Olaudah Equiano Writes Local History'
  At Olaudah Equiano: Representation and Reality, Kingston University (March)
• 'Ignatius Sancho: Personal History, Personal Politics'
  At the Cambridge University World History Workshop, Cambridge (January)

• '"My dying eyes o'erflow": sentimental poetry and the abolition of the slave trade'
  At the Corvey Project Research Seminar, Sheffield Hallam University (November)
• '"In a lilly time me cry": sentiment and the poetry of antislavery in the late eighteenth century'
  At The Inter-University Post-Colonial Studies Seminar at the Institute of English Studies, University of London (October)
• 'Ignatius Sancho's Literary Communities'
  At Literary London: 1660-1830, The English-Speaking Union with The Cambridge Project for the Book Trust, London (September).
• '"In the epistolary way": the literary geography of "The Letters of the Late Ignatius Sancho, an African" (1782)'
  At Literary London: Representations of London in Literature: 2002, Goldsmiths' College, University of London (July).
• 'Ignatius Sancho and the Newspapers'
  At 'Ignatius Sancho: a Celebration, organised by The Equiano Society, Greenwich (March)
• 'To Boldly Write: Literature and the Exploration of Space from Ovid to Star Trek'
  At the KUSEDS Seminar (Kingston University Society for the Exploration and Development of Space), Kingston University (February)

• 'Inventing a poetics of antislavery: Thomas Day and John Bicknell's "The Dying Negro"'
  At Discourses of Slavery and Abolition, Institute of English Studies, University of London (April)

• '"A shriek unusually loud": sentiment, the sublime, and the rhetoric of abolition in the late eighteenth century'
  At the Eighteenth-Century Seminar, Birkbeck College, University of London (December)
• 'William Wilberforce's Sentimental Rhetoric: Reporting the Anti-Slavery Debate in Late-Eighteenth Century England'
  At the Eighteenth-Century Seminar, City University of New York, USA (May)
• '"The Extraordinary Negro": Johnsonian Biography, Slave Narrative and Joseph Jekyll's "Life of Ignatius Sancho" (1782)'
  At the University of Sussex Life Writing Seminar (February)

• 'The Jekyllian Fallacy: Disentangling Sancho's Life and Jekyll's "Life"'
  At Ignatius Sancho: Sensibility and Abolition, Queen Mary, University of London (March)
• 'William Wilberforce, the House of Commons, and the case of the slave captains'
  At the Queen Mary staff and postgraduate research seminar (September)

• '"Read this and blush ye Creoles": Sentiment, rhetoric, and slavery in the late eighteenth century'
  At the Queen Mary staff and postgraduate research seminar (April)

[Back To Top]