James Peacock

I completed an MSc in English Literature: Nation, Writing Culture at the University of Edinburgh, where I also completed my thesis on Paul Auster in July 2006. My principal area of research is contemporary American fiction, focussing on New York fictions, gentrification stories and literary depictions of urban neighbourhoods. I am especially interested in interactions between local and global identities in changing urban spaces. Other areas of research include transnationalism in the music of The Clash; Quakerism and American literature; detective fiction (again from a transnational perspective); and Philip K. Dick. I am happy to supervise undergraduate dissertations and PhD theses on any of these topics.

Modules I teach include New York, New York: An Introduction to American Culture; The Detective and the American City, Words and Pictures: The Contemporary American Graphic Novel and Silence, Strength and Sentiment: Gender and Sexuality in Nineteenth-Century American Writing. I’ve supervised final year dissertations on Edgar Allan Poe, Emily Dickinson, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Paul Auster, among others. I’m happy to discuss dissertation proposals on all aspects of nineteenth-century American literature, contemporary American fiction, detective fiction, Edward Hopper, New York in fiction, and graphic novels.