Who am I?
I am Junior Professor of English Literature and Culture at JGU. I am originally from the UK and moved to Germany after completing my doctorate at the University of Oxford in 2016. Before coming to Mainz, I taught at Göttingen and Jena.
I am interested in questions of literariness. Ultimately my work considers what the understanding of literature as an artform, with particular attention to the history of that artform, can offer us across a broad range of concerns. My first book, Ezra Pound and 20th Century Theories of Language: Faith with the Word (Routledge, 2019), looked at the ways in which Pound – a crucial and deeply troubling major poet of the 20th century – thought about language, and how his poetic conceptions trouble critical assumptions. My second book, Aesthetic Criticism: An Introduction (Routledge, 2026), challenges the caricature of aestheticism, and the principle of ‘art for art’s sake’, that has been allowed to develop over the last 150 years. It proposes a recovery of aesthetic criticism as a serious, and ethical, critical practice – and argues that it is, in fact, a practice widespread in criticism today, if unacknowledged.
At the moment, I am working on two book projects. The first is an exploration of the concept of fate in fin de siècle writing. I look particularly at the work of Walter Pater, Vernon Lee, John Addington Symonds, Michael Field (Katharine Bradley and Edith Cooper), Oscar Wilde, and Arthur Symons, though numerous other fin de siècle figures appear throughout. In the book, Fate at the Fin de Siècle: The Tragic Image, I am particularly concerned with the ways that the ancient concept of fate works as an emotional expression, as a set of tragic images, of the human condition, rather than as a theory of the universe. The second book I am working on is a reissue of the two anthologies of “The Rhymers’ Club”, a group of influential avant-garde poets in 1890s London – the most famous of them was William Butler Yeats. This will be appearing in due course with the MHRA’s Jewelled Tortoise Imprint.
With Melissa Sarikaya at Erlangen-Nürnberg, I co-run the network, Modernism, Aestheticism, and Decadence Studies (MADS), which is now entering its fifth year. We are always looking to welcome new members. At Mainz, I convene the literary society – any JGU students interested in joining our sessions are very, very welcome and should simply email me.
I also publish poetry. My first collection, Babylonian Pieces: A Dream Vision, came out with The Artel Press in 2026, and my poems, essays, and reviews have appeared in numerous British, American, and European journals.
My research areas include:
- Aestheticism and decadence
- Modernism
- Poetry and the history of poetry
- The history of literary criticism
- Connections between literature, philosophy, and theology
- Literariness
- Aesthetics and Aesthetic Theory
What do I teach?
I teach across the history of British literature and culture, and beyond. Most often I offer classes on nineteenth and twentieth century literature, but I am always happy to teach previous – and later – centuries. Beyond literary studies, I periodically teach classes on alternative comedy and culture, and on the culture and history of the British Empire. I am always keen to work across disciplines, particularly with colleagues in the visual arts and comparative literature.
What theses do I supervise?
I supervise B.A./M.A. and B.Ed./M.Ed. theses, and am fortunate to have two doctoral students, and I am happy to be in contact with any potential researchers with projects relating to my interests.