Stephen Donovan
Senior Lecturer/Associate Professor at Department of English
- Telephone:
- +46 18 471 12 48
- E-mail:
- stephen.donovan@engelska.uu.se
- Visiting address:
- Engelska parken, Thunbergsvägen 3 L
- Postal address:
- Box 527
751 20 Uppsala
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Short presentation
Stephen Donovan is Associate Professor (Docent) in English Literature specializing in nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century literature, media, and imperial culture. His research projects include: The Congo Free State and European Culture (Riksbankens Jubileumsfond 2014-17); Investigative Journalism and the Novel in Britain 1860-1930 (Vetenskaprådet 2018-21); and Rhodesia in British Culture 1889-1939 (Riksbankens Jubileumsfond 2022).
Biography
I took my BA in English at Oxford University in 1991 and my PhD in English at Gothenburg University in 2001, after which I carried out postdoc work at Royal Holloway College, Blekinge Institute of Technology, and NYU before joining Uppsala's Department of English in 2005. I have also taught as a visiting lecturer at the University of the Witwatersrand, the University of Indonesia, and the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. Most recently, I was a research associate at Queen Mary University London (2021-2022) and Leeds Beckett University (2023).
My primary research interests are Victorian and Modernist literature, periodicals history, early film, and imperial culture. I have written widely on Joseph Conrad, particularly in relation to popular culture and serialization, and am the creator of Conrad First: The Joseph Conrad Periodical Archive (www.conradfirst.net), which makes available Conrad's works as they first appeared in over two hundred magazines and newspapers.
My latest monograph, Undercover: Victorian Investigative Journalism in Fact and Fiction, co-authored with Matthew Rubery, will be published by Cambridge University Press in April 2025, and I am currently completing a study titled Charterland: Rhodesia in British Culture 1889-1930. I have served on evaluative boards for national research bodies in Sweden, Poland, and Portugal and been a PhD examiner in Australia, South Africa, and the UK.
Publications
Recent publications
- Compression for the Masses: Miscellaneous Reading and George Newnes's Tit-Bits (2022)
- Amateur Lunatics (2022)
- Emigration with a Vengeance (2021)
- Doing the Amateur Casual (2021)
- Dark and Stormy Nights: Literary Weather and the Novel (2020)
All publications
Articles
- Amateur Lunatics (2022)
- Emigration with a Vengeance (2021)
- Doing the Amateur Casual (2021)
- Character Assassin (2020)
- Love on the Veldt: Romance and Ideology in Gertrude Page’s ‘A Terror That Saved’ (1912) (2017)
- Underwater Conrad (2017)
- The American Serialization of Lord Jim (2017)
- Introduction (2017)
- Introduction (2016)
- Congo Utopia (2016)
- 'The Wisdom of the Race': An Uncollected Conrad Text of 1921 (2015)
- Introduction: Conrad Under the Sign of the Transnational (2013)
- Shockwaves (2013)
- Introduction (2012)
- Colonial Pedigree (2012)
- John Buchan's "The New Age" (1919) (2011)
- Guns and Roses (2009)
- Conrad and the Harmsworth Empire The Daily Mail, London Magazine, Times, Evening News, and Hutchinson's Magazine (2009)
- Conrad and the Garlands (2009)
- Introduction Part II (2009)
- Introduction Part I (2009)
- Introduction (2009)
- Their place in the sun (2007)
- Introduction (2007)
- Conrad in Swedish: The First Translation (2006)
- Sunshine and Shadows: Conrad and Early Cinema (2004)
- SHORT BUT TO THE POINT: Newspaper Typography in “Aeolus” (2003)
- Snow Is General: Newspaper Weather Forecasting in “The Dead” (2002)
- Conrad’s Unholy Recollection (2002)
- That newspaper fellow – what’s his name: Joseph Conrad on W. T. Stead (2000)
- Dead Men’s News: Joyce’s “A Painful Case” and the Modern Press (2000)
- Figures, facts, theories: Conrad and Chartered Company Imperialism (1999)
- In Darkest England and the Way Out: Imagining Empire, Imagining Britain. (1998)
Books
- The Imperial Short Story. Special Issue of Nordic Journal of English Studies 16/2 (Autumn 2017). (2017)
- Europe Made in Africa: The Congo Free State in Literature and Culture, 1885–1920. Special Issue of English Studies in Africa (Spring 2016) (2016)
- Transnational Conrad (2013)
- Political future fiction : speculative and counter-factual politics in Edwardian fiction (2013)
- Knocknagow (1918) and the Film Company of Ireland: Special Issue of Screening the Past (2012)
- Secret Commissions (2012)
- Conrad and Serialization: Special Triple-Issue of Conradiana (Spring, Summer, Winter 2009) (2009)
- Colonial Africa on the Silent Screen (2009)
- Authority Matters (2008)
- Authority Matters (2008)
- Under Western Eyes by Joseph Conrad. Penguin Modern Classics. Edited by Stephen Donovan. (2007)
- Beyond Nationalism (2007)
- New Perspectives on Zimbabwean and Rhodesian Writing, 1890-2007: Special Double-Issue of English Studies in Africa (Autumn, Winter 2007) (2007)
- Joseph Conrad and Popular Culture (2005)
Chapters
- Compression for the Masses: Miscellaneous Reading and George Newnes's Tit-Bits (2022)
- Dark and Stormy Nights: Literary Weather and the Novel (2020)
- Modernism (2019)
- Indexicality and the Newspaper Crosshead in Late-Nineteenth-Century Britain (2019)
- Conrad, Joseph (2015)
- Snow is General: Newspaper Forecasting in 'The Dead'. (2014)
- Serialization (2014)
- The Arts of the Magazine Writer (2013)
- What Lies Beneath The Submarine Shipwreck in Anglo-American Culture, 1880-1920 (2013)
- A Very Modern Experiment (2013)
- Kings of Capital (2012)
- Touring In Extremis: Travel and Adventure in the Congo (2012)
- Pleasant Spectres and Malformed Shades (2009)
- Gorgeous Eloquence (2009)
- Popular Culture (2009)
- In the Papers (2008)
- Author, Authorship, Authority, and Other Matters (2008)
- Fraudesia: The British South Africa Company and Its Critics (2006)
- Touring In Extremis: Travel and Adventure in the Congo (2006)
- Stevenson and Popular Entertainment (2006)
- The Muse of Blackwood’s: Charles Whibley and Literary Criticism in the World (2006)
- In Darkest England and the Way Out: Imagining Empire, Imagining Britain (2005)
- Conrad’s World of Advertising: “An Anarchist” (1906) and “The Partner” (1911) (2004)
- Prosaic Newspaper Stunts: Conrad, Modernity and the Press (2002)
Conferences
Other
