Sam Halliday

I studied American Studies at the University of Sussex and the University of Nottingham before doing a PhD in English Literature at Royal Holloway, University of London, supervised by Professor Tim Armstrong. That PhD (on electricity in nineteenth century American literature, and related matters) eventually turned into my first book, Science and Technology in the Age of Hawthorne, Melville, Twain, and James: Thinking and Writing Electricity (2007). I have been at Queen Mary since 2000. Between around 2008 and 2013 I mostly worked on sound in twentieth century literature and other art forms; more recently, I have started work on the deeply meditated and elaborate response to twentieth century media (especially cinema) that is the work of American writer Ralph Ellison.

My most recent book is Sonic Modernity: Representing Sound in Literature, Culture and the Arts (2013); here, I survey Anglophone and other literature of the early twentieth century, focusing on the sounds this literature represents and the other arts (especially music) with which this literature is engaged. Other recent work includes an article on the sound of seashells (and seashells’ own resemblance to gramophones), and an article on the way that sound configures time and space.

In my current and future research, I will focus in detail on the writings of Ralph Ellison. This work will continue to explore issues relating to sound and sound technology, and will also pay more sustained attention than my previous work to the theory and practice of cinema.