David Watson

David Watson is an Associate Professor specializing in American Literature at the Department of English, Uppsala University. He has published on modernist poetry, nineteenth-century and contemporary American literature, and transnational and translation studies. His current research addresses depictions of finance and security in the contemporary American novel, as well as the rhetoric of popular sovereignty in the early American novel.

Biographical information

I joined the Department of English at Uppsala University as a research fellow in American literature in 2006, and was appointed as Senior Lecturer specializing in American literature in 2010. I qualified as docent in 2011.

Academic Qualifications

PhD in English (University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa, 2003).

Supervision

I currently supervise doctoral theses in American literature on environmental writing, and literature and contemporary wars.

Teaching

My current teaching includes diverse graduate courses in American literature, Modernism, and Postmodernism, as well as undergarduate courses in, amongst others, life writing.

Research

I have published on 19th century and modernist American poets, 19th century and contemporary novelists, and issues in transnational and translation studies, on which I have co-edited two volumes. Currently I am completing a monograph on Security Cultures: Imperialism, Vulnerability, and Twenty-First Century American Fiction. My most recent research is on finance and the contemporary American novel, and the rhetoric of popular sovereignty in early American literature. I am also project leader of an international collaboration on Fictions of Threat: Speculation, Security, and Surviving the Now.

Research Grants

Fictions of Threat: Speculation, Security, and Surviving the Now. Collaborative project financed by a STINT institutional grant. (2013-2018)

Cosmopolitan and Vernacular Dynamics in World Literature. Participant in research program financed by RJ (2016-2022).

My teaching interests include: American literature; contemporary literature; modernism; transnational approaches to literary studies; continental theory; and poetry.