Research Interests

My research focuses on the intersections between literature, theology and aesthetics, with a particular interest in visual culture. I have published widely, including books, articles and chapters on a range of figures including the first monograph about the contemporary novelist and artist Douglas Coupland; John Ruskin; the Pre-Raphaelites; alternative realism; David Bowie; and a many pieces on apocalyptic fiction.

I have two primary historical interests: nineteenth-century writing and its relationship with theological debates and contemporary fiction in relation to the sacred. I have recent or forthcoming essays in The Tennyson Review and Bulletin; The Cambridge Companion to American Utopian Literature and Culture Since 1945; Digressions in Deep Time; and The Cambridge Companion to British Postmodernism.

My current projects include book length studies on the cultural afterlives of Lazarus and contemporary British fiction and postsecular culture.

Monographs:

Douglas Coupland (Manchester University Press, 2007)

Contemporary Fiction and Christianity (Continuum, 2008)

The New Atheist Novel (Continuum, 2010) (co-authored with Arthur Bradley)

Apocalyptic Fiction (Bloomsbury, 2017)

My editorial work includes a special issue of The Year Book of English Studies on religion and literature (2009); and as a co-editor, with Jo Carruthers and Mark Knight, Literature and the Bible: a Reader (Routledge, 2013).

Career Details

BA, MA, PhD, Lancaster

I have served in a variety of roles in English Literature & Creative Writing, including as Director of Undgratuate Studies (pastoral lead) and assessment officer. In 2024-5 I am the department's Equality, Diversity and Inclusion representative.

Literature to 1900; Victorian Literature; American Literature from 1900; The Theory and Practice of Criticism; Contemporary Literature

I have supervised a wide range of doctoral projects in the wide fields of American and Engilsh Literature with subjects including apocalyptic and dystopian fiction; Ruskin and aesthetics; the Harlem Renaissance; contemporary Gothic.

I am interested in supervising research on Victorian literature; contemporary literature, including fiction and poetry; literature and religion; literature and the visual arts.

PhD Supervision Interests

I welcome proposals on contemporary fiction (British and American); literature and theology; Douglas Coupland; nineteenth-century religion.