Dr Angela Wright

Photograph: Angela Wright.

BA University of Stirling, MA University of York, PhD University of Aberdeen

Room 1.22, Jessop West
1 Upper Hanover Street
Sheffield
S3 7RA

Internal extension: 28488
Phone number: +44 (0)114-222-8488
Fax: +44 (0)114-222-8481

email : a.h.wright@sheffield.ac.uk

I was appointed as a lecturer in Romantic Literature here at Sheffield University in 2002. My main research focus lies in the publication, reception and translation of Gothic literature published between 1764 and 1820. I first developed this interest when studying for my undergraduate degree in English and French at the University of Stirling. I continued to focus on Gothic literature in my doctoral thesis, which examined the relationship between vision and imprisonment in French and British Gothic fiction. I am currently putting the finishing touches to a monograph developed from this interest, which explores the influence of eighteenth-century French literature upon the development of the Gothic genre in Britain. In this book, I examine the crucial roles played by translation and adaptation in the fiction of Sophia Lee, Ann Radcliffe, Maria Regina Roche, Matthew Lewis and Charles Maturin. This bookis entitled The Import of Terror: Britain, France and the Gothic, 1760-1820. I have also recently published Gothic Fiction: A Reader´s Guide to Essential Criticism with Palgrave.

My next monograph project will be upon the Romantic author Mary Shelley for the University of Wales Press´s Gothic Literary Studies series.With colleagues, I am also working towards the creation of an Anglo-French research centre within the School of English. We aim to revisit France and England´s long history of hostilities, and explore the ways in which literary translation, exile and adaptations both represented, and added fuel to this antagonistic relationship. Upon completion of these projects, I intend to commence work upon a potentially more domestic theme: the exploration of the connection between servants and narrative testimony in Romantic literature.

My research is closely tied to my teaching interests. I teach and lecture on eighteenth-century, Romantic and Victorian literature and literary theory. I offer two approved modules at undergraduate level. My Level Two modulemodule 'European Gothic' examines the development of the Gothic genre in Europe from the eighteenth century to the present day; and a third-year module entitled 'Crime and Transgression in Romantic literature' explores the different resonances of these terms across Romantic poetry, fiction, drama and reviews. I also offer an MA module entitled 'The Rise of the Gothic'. This module explores the development of the Gothic genre in Britain from the late eighteenth century to the early nineteenth century in relation to political, aesthetic and scientific discourses of the time.

I now contribute to the newly-developed interdisciplinary MA in Eighteenth-Century Studies. At present, I also supervise four research students who work upon Romantic and nineteenth-century subjects with me. w

Teaching

  • Lit 207 - Restoration and Eighteenth-Century Literature.
  • Lit 208 - The Romantic Period.
  • Lit 217 - European Gothic.
  • Lit 3023 - Crime and Transgression in Romantic Literature.
  • Lit 6007 - The Rise of the Gothic, 1790-1890.

Publications

Books

  • Gothic Fiction: A reader’s guide to essential criticism Palgrave, 2007 ISBN-10: 1-4039-3666-8)
  • The Import of Terror: Britain, France and the Gothic, 1780-1820 (forthcoming, 2008)

Co-edited special issue of international journal

  • With Hamish Mathison, ‘Instruments of Enlightenment’ including ‘Introduction’ (with Mathison), History of European Ideas (31/2, 2005. ISSN: 0191-6599)

Editions

  • Ed., Eleanor Sleath, The Orphan of the Rhine

Articles, chapters, etc.

  • ‘Games behind the scenes: Spectacular politics in French melodrama’ in Studies on Voltaire in the Eighteenth Century (SVEC 2000:08 pp. 211-218. ISSN: 0435 2866)
  • ‘L'importance du paysage sauvage dans l'évolution de l'indépendence et de la fraternité pour l'héroine du roman noir et du mélodrame,’ In Mélodrames et romans noirs, 1750-1890, eds. Simone Bernard Griffiths, Jean Sgard. (Toulouse: PU du Mirail, 2000: 247-258. ISBN: 2-85816-503-3)
  • ‘European Disruptions of the Idealized Woman: Matthew Lewis’s The Monk and the Marquis de Sade’s La Nouvelle Justine’ in European Gothic: A Spirited Exchange, ed. Avril Horner (Manchester University Press, August 2002. ISBN: 0 7190 6063 X) Reprinted in Hogle, Jerrold E., ed. Gothic Literature: A Gale Critical Companion. 3 Vols. Farmington Hills, MI: Thomson/Gale, 2006. ISBN 13: 9780787694708. ISBN10: 0787694703.
  • • ‘Early Women’s Gothic Writing: Examining Problems of Historicity and Canonicity in Clara Reeve’s The Old English Baron and Sophia Lee’s The Recess’ in Approaches to Teaching Gothic Fiction, eds. Diane Long Hoeveler and Tamar Heller (New York: Modern Language Association, October 2003. ISBN: 0873529073)
  • ‘To live the life of hopeless recollection’: Mourning and Melancholia in Female Gothic, 1780-1800’ in ‘Female Gothic’, eds. Andrew Smith and Diana Wallace, Gothic Studies (6.1, May 2004. ISSN: 1362-7937)
  • ‘Scottish Gothic’ in The Routledge Companion to Gothic, eds. Catherine Spooner and Emma McEvoy, (London: Routledge, 2007) ISBN-10:0415398428
  • ‘“How do we ape thee, France!” The cult of Rousseau in Women’s Gothic Writing of the 1790s’ in Le Gothic, eds. Avril Horner and Sue Zlosnik (Basingstoke: Palgrave, in press)
  • ‘In Search of Arden: Ann Radcliffe’s William Shakespeare’ in Gothic Shakespeares, eds. John Drakakis and Dale Townshend (London: Routledge, 2008)

Refereed Online Journal Articles:

  • ‘Corinne in distress: Translation as cultural misappropriation’ in ‘Madame de Stäel and Corinne in England’ ed. Mary Peace, introd. Cora Kaplan, a special issue of Corvey CW3 , 2,Winter2004, ISSN:1744-9618 (http://www2.shu.ac.uk/corvey/cw3journal/)
  • ‘Haunted Britain in the 1790s’ in ‘Gothic Technologies: Visuality in the Romantic Era’, ed. Robert Miles, a special issue of Romantic Circles Praxis Series

I have also written book reviews for French Studies; the British Association of Romantic Studies´ Bulletin and Review and The British Journal of Eighteenth-Century Studies. I also serve on the Advisory Board of The International Gothic Association.

See also


01 October 09