Dr Katherine Ebury
School of English
Senior Lecturer in Modern Literature
+44 114 222 6295
Full contact details
School of English
Jessop West
1 Upper Hanover Street
Sheffield
S3 7RA
- Profile
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I am a leading scholar of James Joyce and literary modernism. I have been elected as a trustee of the International James Joyce Foundation and serve on the board of the International Flann O’Brien Society. I am a founding member of the new learned society, the Legal Humanities Association. I am a member of the editorial board for Joyce Studies Annual and The Parish Review: Journal of Flann O’Brien Studies. As a reviewer, I am a grant reviewer for the AHRC Peer Review College and I am also an external reviewer for GOI Irish Research funding schemes. I regularly peer review books for Cambridge University Press, University Press of Florida, Palgrave Macmillan, Edinburgh University Press, Bloomsbury and Liverpool University Press. I have also previously organised major conferences, including the XXIX Joyce Symposium at Glasgow in 2024 and the British Society for Literature and Science conference in 2020. On a University Level at Sheffield, I am an Open Research Champion, showing leadership on the benefits of open access publishing, and the Early Career Research Lead for Arts and Humanities, supporting postdoctoral fellows and other researchers across the university with my collaborative work on governance and training for ECRs.
In terms of publications, I have produced two well-reviewed monographs, four edited collections, three journal special issues and many peer-reviewed articles and book chapters. I was awarded an AHRC Leadership Fellowship for my research project ‘Literature, Psychoanalysis and the Death Penalty, 1900-1950’, which was the basis for my recent monograph in the area of law and literature, Modern Literature and the Death Penalty, 1890-1950.
In teaching, I am a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. I have a commitment to innovative teaching that treats the student as producer. In my administrative roles, I have been particularly committed to the Student Voice, mentoring colleagues, and to the curriculum design, recently redesigning our undergraduate Literature programmes with support from colleagues. I have supervised 12 PhD students to successful completion (all minor corrections or no corrections) with a diverse range of projects. I have mentored postdoctoral researchers funded by the AHRC and the Leverhulme Trust who have gone on to successful roles elsewhere.
- Research interests
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I am a sought-after research leader and collaborator with expertise on modernism, gender and sexuality, law and literature, critical theory, animal studies, and literature and science. I am a literary historian, using historicist and archival methods to explore new and neglected contexts for late Victorian, Edwardian and Modernist works of literature. Past public engagement projects have involved human rights charities such as Sheffield Amnesty and Reprieve as well as the arts organisation the Showroom Cinema, as well as with podcast series such as Blooms and Barnacles, Off the Shelf, and Radio Myles.
My next project will examine themes of gender and sexuality within an energy humanities framework. Looking at representations of specific aspects of the home and the domestic, including the stove, the fireplace and the bathtub, the project will examine how gendered labour intersects with fossil fuel culture in modern and contemporary literature. I have already completed scoping work on authors including W.B. Yeats, James Joyce and Clare Keegan, and am looking into potential funders and stakeholders.
My recent monograph Modern Literature and the Death Penalty, 1890-1950 (2021) was funded by the AHRC and was published in the Palgrave Studies in ‘Literature, Culture and Human Rights’ book series. This book received the following reviews and endorsements:- Ravit Reichman (Brown University, US) responded to the book’s methodology which ‘sheds light on the submerged juridical and political charge in narrative, connecting it deftly to its historical moment and revealing the intimate ties between literature and law’.
- Katherine Baxter (University of Northumbria, UK) praised the book’s richness ‘leads us through a compelling discussion of the death penalty in literature […], drawing on a rich range of publications, from golden-age detective fiction to memoir to canonical works’.
- Lauren Arrington (Maynooth University, Ireland) noted to the book’s message about the public impact of literature: ‘In rigorous and fascinating detail, Katherine Ebury shows the profound influence that literature’s responses to the death penalty had on public debates about capital punishment’.
- Ruben Borg (Hebrew University Jerusalem) commended my work as a study of ‘the way three discourses interpenetrate and influence each other. The argument is pitched in the overlap of law, literature, and psychoanalysis, disciplines uniquely suited to process and examine a modernist preoccupation with death’.
My first book, Modernism and Cosmology, was published with Palgrave in 2014. It was extremely positively received nationally and internationally.
I am the author of essays including in leading journals such as the James Joyce Quarterly, Journal of Modern Literature, Joyce Studies Annual, Irish Studies Review, Society and Animals, as well as chapters with prestigious presses. I have guest edited the James Joyce Quarterly, Open Library of Humanities and Humanities.
- Publications
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Books
- Modern Literature and the Death Penalty, 1890-1950. Palgrave.
- Joyce's Non-Fiction Writings: "Outside His Jurisfiction". Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan (London).
- Modernism and Cosmology: Absurd Lights. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Edited books
- Joyce’s Non-Fiction Writings: 'Outside His Jurisfiction'. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan.
- Progressive Intertextual Practice In Modern And Contemporary Literature. Routledge.
- Flann O'Brien and the Nonhuman: Environments, Animals, Machines. Cork: Cork University Press.
- Ethical Crossroads in Literary Modernism. Clemson and Liverpool UPs.
Journal articles
- Commemoration, modernism and self-identity in contemporary graphic memoir. Textual Practice, 38(1), 140-160. View this article in WRRO
- The gothic executioner in golden age mysteries. Studies in Crime Writing, 4. View this article in WRRO
- The beast and the sovereign in 'Circe': human and animal rights in Joyce studies. Textual Practice, 36(2), 223-241. View this article in WRRO
- Introduction. James Joyce Quarterly, 58(1-2), 11-17.
- New contexts for confession: Brian O’Nolan, golden age crime fiction, & Theodor Reik. The Parish Review: Journal of Flann O'Brien Studies, 4(2), 1-22. View this article in WRRO
- Nonhuman Animal Pain and Capital Punishment in Beckett’s “Dante and the Lobster”
. Society and Animals, 25(5), 436-455. View this article in WRRO
- ‘"Serve, Serve" it sang, and it sang that all day:" James Joyce and John Berryman’. Hypermedia Joyce Studies. View this article in WRRO
- “A new science”: Yeats's A Vision and relativistic cosmology. Irish Studies Review, 22(2), 167-183.
- ‘Mulrennan Spoke To Him About Universe And Stars’: Astronomy In A Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Man. Dublin James Joyce Journal, 6/7, 90-108.
- Science in Modern Poetry: New Directions ed. by John Holmes (review). Modernism/modernity, 20(1), 159-161.
- Review: Science in Modern Poetry (Holmes). Modernism/modernity, 20(1), 159-161.
- Review essay on Brandon Kershner’s and Tekla Mecsnober’s, Joycean Unions. James Joyce Quarterly, 1 (Fall 2011)(49).
- Review: James Joyce: Texts and Contexts (Platt). James Joyce Literary Supplement, 1(27).
- Review of Cliett, Bill Cole, A Finnegans Wake Lextionary: Let James Joyce Jazz Up Your Voca(l)bulary. James Joyce Broadsheet(92), 2-2.
- '"In this valley of dying stars": Eliot's Cosmology'. Journal of Modern Literature, 3(35), 139-157.
- Article Review: David Ben-Merre, ‘“What Points of Contact Existed Between These Languages?’: James Joyce, Albert Einstein, and Interdisciplinary Study” (74-75). Journal of Literature and Science, 4(1), 74-75.
- 'Beyond the Rainbow: Spectroscopy in Finnegans Wake'. Joyce Studies Annual, 2011, 97-121.
- "Thinking of the Crater of Some Noted Volcano or the Dublin River: The Third James Joyce Research Colloquium.". James Joyce Literary Supplement, ii (Fall)(21), 8.
- Review: Joyce's Disciples Disciplined. James Joyce Broadsheet, (Winter)(88), 2.
- On misogyny in the critical reception of Molly Bloom. James Joyce Quarterly. View this article in WRRO
- James Joyce and appeal: between law and ethics. James Joyce Quarterly. View this article in WRRO
- Taylor's Sweet Escapes. Post45. View this article in WRRO
- Diagnosis Shell Shock in Representations of the Miltary Death Penalty in WWI Fiction and Life-writing (short article, 3000 words), 'Special Issue: Modernism and Diagnosis', Print+ open access. Modernism/Modernity Print+.
- Review of 'Assembling Flann O'Brien' (2013) by Maebh Long. The Parish Review: Journal of Flann O'Brien Studies, 2(2).
Book chapters
- Introduction, Progressive Intertextual Practice In Modern And Contemporary Literature (pp. 1-20). Taylor & Francis
- Fossils and Fossil Fuels: Nonhuman Energy and Decay in Finnegans Wake, Finnegans Wake Human and Nonhuman Histories (pp. 21-35).
- Introduction Katherine Ebury, Bridget English, and Matthew Fogarty, ETHICAL CROSSROADS IN LITERARY MODERNISM (pp. 1-+).
- James Joyce, Irish Modernism, and Watch Technology, TECHNOLOGY IN IRISH LITERATURE AND CULTURE (pp. 201-216).
- World War II Treason Trials and the Legacy of Irish Rebellion in Rebecca West's The Meaning of Treason (1947), LAW AND LITERATURE (pp. 139-155).
- Rhetorics of sacrifice: Sex, gender and the death penalty in James Joyce, W. B. Yeats and the 1916 generation (pp. 129-140). Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
- ‘Joyce’s Nonhuman Ecologies’ In Flynn C (Ed.), New James Joyce Studies
- Vivisection in Modernist Culture and Popular Fiction, 1890–1945, Palgrave Studies in Animals and Literature (pp. 397-409). Springer International Publishing
- 'Nothing in the World Would Save Me from the Gallows': O'Nolan and the Death Penalty' In Borg R & Fagan P (Ed.), 'Flann O'Brien: Gallows Humour' (pp. 34-47). Cork University Press
- Science, the Occult and Irish Drama: Ghosts in Yeats and Beckett In Conrad K, Parsons C & Weng J (Ed.), Science, Technology and Irish Modernism (pp. 229-247). Syracuse University Press
- Introduction In Ebury K & Fraser J (Ed.), Joyce’s Non-Fiction Writings: Outside His Jurisfiction (pp. 1-28). Palgrave Macmillan
- Becoming-Animal in the Epiphanies: Joyce Between Fiction and Non-Fiction In Ebury K & Fraser J (Ed.), Joyce’s Non-Fiction Writings: Outside His Jurisfiction (pp. 175-194). Cham: Palgrave Macmillan.
- Physical comedy and the comedy of physics in The Third Policeman, The Dalkey Archive and Cruiskeen Lawn In Borg R, Fagan P & McCourt J (Ed.), Flann O’Brien: Problems with Authority Cork University Press
- ‘The sonnet might “lead to dishonesty”: John Berryman and Paul Muldoon as Sonneteers’ In Coleman P (Ed.), John Berryman at 100: Centenary Essays (pp. 195-214). Peter Lang
- Ghost, Medium, Criminal, Genius: Lombrosian Types in Yeats’s Art and Philosophy, Yeats, Philosophy, and the Occult (pp. 57-82). Clemson, SC: Clemson University Press.
- Between the Bang and the Whimper: Eliot and Apocalypse, Modernism, Christianity and Apocalypse (pp. 97-108). BRILL
- Introduction: Cosmic Modernism, MODERNISM AND COSMOLOGY: ABSURD LIGHTS (pp. 1-+).
- Stars and Atoms in ‘The Trilogy’, Modernism and Cosmology (pp. 154-180). Palgrave Macmillan UK
- Yeatsian Cosmology, Modernism and Cosmology (pp. 30-65). Palgrave Macmillan UK
- Epilogue: International Modernism, Modernism and Cosmology (pp. 181-187). Palgrave Macmillan UK
- Introduction: Cosmic Modernism, Modernism and Cosmology (pp. 1-29). Palgrave Macmillan UK
- Joycean Cosmologies, Modernism and Cosmology (pp. 66-99). Palgrave Macmillan UK
- The Beckettian Cosmos, Modernism and Cosmology (pp. 128-153). Palgrave Macmillan UK
- Beyond the Rainbow: Spectroscopy in the Wake, Modernism and Cosmology (pp. 100-127). Palgrave Macmillan UK
- The Scientific Revolution, The Oxford Handbook of W.B. Yeats (pp. 351-363). Oxford University Press
- Rhetorics of Sacrifice: Sex, Gender & the Death Penalty in the 1916 Generation In fagan P, greaney J & radak T (Ed.), Irish Modernisms: Gaps, Conjectures, Possibilities
- ‘How Murderers Die: The Impact of the 1868 Abolition of Public Execution on Life-writing by Executioners’, In Low P, Rutherford H & Sandford-Couch C (Ed.), Execution Culture and Penal Practice in the Nineteenth Century
- Joyce, James (1882–1941), Routledge Encyclopedia of Modernism Routledge
Book reviews
- Law and the Unconscious: A Psychoanalytic Perspective by Anne C. Dailey. American Imago, 76(2), 269-273.
- MODERNISM AND THE LAW. JAMES JOYCE QUARTERLY, 56(1-2), 177-179.
- James Joyce, Science, and Modernist Print Culture: "The Einstein of English Fiction". MODERNISM-MODERNITY, 23(3), 698-699.
- Joycean Unions: Post-Millennial Essays from East to West ed. by R. Brandon Kershner and Tekla Mecsnóber (review). James Joyce Quarterly, 50(3), 853-856.
Digital content
- 'Psychoanalytic Theory' and 'Analysis of Goblin Market'.. Retrieved from http://blogs.bcu.ac.uk/virtualtheorist/
Dictionary or encyclopaedia entries
- James Joyce. In Routledge Encyclopedia of Modernism.
Other
- ‘Joyce and the Nonhuman’, special issue, James Joyce Quarterly.
- Joyce, Animals and the Nonhuman.
- ‘Literature, Law and Psychoanalysis’, Open Access Special Collection, Open Library of the Humanities.
- Modern Literature and the Death Penalty, 1890-1950. Palgrave.
- Research group
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In the past I have supervised BA and MA dissertations on topics including modernism, psychoanalysis, the middlebrow and contemporary popular culture. My PhD students have worked on a diverse range of topics connected to my research practice including travel writing, gender and phenomenology, sexuality studies, WWI theatre, poetry and life-writing, chaos theory, Cold War culture and representations of violence in various contexts.
- Teaching activities
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I first began teaching in 2010 and I have found in the past few years my pedagogy has matured substantially now that I have more than a decade’s worth of experience to draw upon. I recently achieved the status of Senior Fellow of the HEA because since the award of the FHEA I have developed further expertise in innovative module and programme design, incorporating wider research in learning and teaching into my practice. I have also developed wider skills to allow me to engage with every dimension of the HEA Professional Standards Framework, to successfully coordinate broad strategic initiatives and to support and mentor colleagues in relation to teaching and learning. I am an active supporter of other teachers, through both module convenorship and forms of both formal and informal mentorship, including supporting ECRs and postdocs to gain recognition for their teaching activities through the HEA.
My teaching and leadership has received consistently excellent feedback from students and moderators, as well as from mentees and colleagues. I am active in learning and teaching practice outside my institution and internationally; I am a Judge at the Global Undergraduate Awards and I am an MA external examiner for the University of Bristol. I regularly contribute to prestigious European summer schools in my field – in the past 5 years, I have taught at two James Joyce Summer Schools (one in Ireland, one in Italy), at the Yeats Summer School (in Ireland) and twice at the Vienna Irish Studies and Cultural Theory Summer School (in Austria).
List of recent courses taught
- Contemporary Literature, Level 1 Option Module
- Romanticism to Modernism, Level 2 Core Module
- Crime Writing, Level 2 Option
- Researching the Long Twentieth Century, Level 3 Option
- Memory and Narrative, MA Option
- Midcentury Modernism, MA Option
- Writing Identity, Online MA module