Dr Dan Wall

Biography

My teaching and research interests are concentrated primarily in the fields of Early Modern drama and British, Irish and American literature of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Specific areas of interest include Romantic and Victorian fiction, the political and literary climate of the 1790s, Romantic and Victorian poetry and biography and early nineteenth-century periodical culture (specifically focusing upon pan-European literary connections). I have published articles and essays on subjects across the field of Romantic literature and have recently contributed articles to The Cambridge Guide to the Eighteenth-Century Novel, 1650-1820 (forthcoming, edited by April London) and The Edinburgh Biographical Dictionary of Scottish Writers (forthcoming, edited by Caroline McCracken-Flesher and Alan Riach). Along with Shane Alcobia-Murphy and Lindsay Milligan I have co-edited a collection of essays on Scottish and Irish Literature and Culture. I also worked as a research assistant on The New Penguin Anthology of Irish Verse, edited by Professor Patrick Crotty. 

Prizes and Awards

2020: Nominated by students for a Principal’s Excellence Award for Teaching, in the category of ‘Best Undergraduate Lecturer’

2006: BARS Stephen Copley Postgraduate Research Bursary.

2002-2006: University of Aberdeen College of Arts and Social Sciences Postgraduate Bursary.

Research Overview

Publications:

- Essay in book: ‘The Wiser and Better View?’ J. G. Lockhart at the Limits of Romantic Biography’, in Johanna Archbold et al eds., Beyond the Anchoring Grounds (Belfast: Cló Ollscoil na Banríona, 2006)

- Essay in book: ‘Relocating Scotland: John Gibson Lockhart and the ‘Horae Germanicae”, in Shane Alcobia-Murphy ed., What Rough Beasts? (Newcastle Upon-Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2008)

- Essay in book: ‘Scottish Minds Astray: Psychology and Culture in Lockhart’s Adam Blair and Matthew Wald’, in Eadaoin Agnew, Eamonn Hughes, Caroline Magennis and Christina Morin eds., A Further Shore: Essays in Irish and Scottish Studies (Aberdeen: AHRC Centre for Irish and Scottish Studies, 2008)

- Essay in book: “Grand Napoleons of the Realm of Print”? Filthy Lucre in J. G. Lockhart’s Life of Scott’ in Shane Alcobia-Murphy, Margaret Maxwell eds., ‘The Enclave of My Nation’: Crosscurrents in Irish and Scottish Literature (Aberdeen: AHRC Centre for Irish and Scottish Studies, 2008)

- Co-edited Collection of Essays: Founder to Shore: More Crosscurrents in Irish and Scottish Studies, with Shane Alcobia-Murphy and Lindsay Milligan (Aberdeen: AHRC Centre for Irish and Scottish Studies, 2011)

- Essay in book: ‘Changes Over Time: Visions of Scotland in O’ Hagan and Galt’ in Shane Alcobia-Murphy, Lindsay Milligan, Dan Wall eds., Founder to Shore: More Crosscurrents in Irish and Scottish Studies (Aberdeen: AHRC Centre for Irish and Scottish Studies, 2011)

- Essay in book: 'Radical poetry and the Literary Magazine: Stalking Leigh Hunt in the Republic of Letters' in John Kirk, Michael Brown and Andrew Noble eds., The Cultures of Radicalism in Britain and Ireland (London: Pickering and Chatto, 2013)

- Essay in book: 'The Rival Chiefs, Or, The Battle of Mere: A Tale of Ancient Times, by Anna Millikin', in April London, ed. The Cambridge Guide to the Eighteenth Century Novel, 1650-1820 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, forthcoming)

- Essay in book: 'The Maid of Avon: A Novel for the Haut Ton, by Frances Peck', in April London, ed. The Cambridge Guide to the Eighteenth Century Novel, 1650-1820 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, forthcoming)

Selected Conference and Seminar Papers:

- ‘Alliance, Antagonism and Authorship’ - The Eleventh International Sir Walter Scott Conference, Université de La Sorbonne, Paris, 9-13 July 2018: paper entitled ‘The Peculiar Province of History: re-imagining the past in Scott’s Life of Napoleon Buonaparte’.

-The Blackwood’s Bicentenary Conference, University of Edinburgh, 24-25 July 2017:paper entitled ‘The Character of a Magazine: Redefining the Romantic Reviewer in the Noctes Ambrosianae. Chair for panel session ‘The Feats and Follies of John Gibson Lockhart’.

- Dickens Fellowship Seminar, Aberdeen, 17 March 2015: Paper entitled 'The Troubled Gestation of The Old Curiosity Shop'.

- Dickens Fellowship Seminar, Aberdeen, 15 November 2014: Paper entitled 'The Publication History of Bleak House'.

- Literary London Conference, Senate House, University of London, 4-6 July 2012: Paper entitled ‘“Neither friend nor companion”: charting the imaginative topography of London in Dickens and De Quincey’. Chair for panel session ‘Virginia Woolf, Time and Space’, 6 July 2012.

- ‘United Islands? Multi-Lingual Radical Poetry and Song in Britain and Ireland 1770–1820’ symposium, Queen’s University, Belfast, 26-29 August, 2009: Paper entitled ‘Radical Poetry and the Literary Magazine, 1800–1820’.        

- ‘The Novel and Its Borders’, conference, University of Aberdeen, 8-10 July 2008: paper entitled ‘Imperfect Unions: Marriage and National Culture in Edgeworth and Ferrier’.

- ‘The Enclave of My Nation’ conference, University of Aberdeen, 7-9 September 2007: paper given entitled “Grand Napoleons of the Realm of Print’? Filthy Lucre in Lockhart's Life of Scott’.

- ‘Scott, Romance and 'Real History” conference, Oxford Brookes University, 30 July - 3 August 2007: Paper entitled “Grand Napoleons of the Realm of Print’? Filthy Lucre in Lockhart's Life of Scott’.

- Centre for Eighteenth Century Studies, University of York, 20 February 2007: Seminar Paper entitled “Gratuitous Nonsense’: Hunting Leigh Hunt in Blackwood’s Magazine’.

- ‘The British Periodical Text’ conference, Centre for Romantic Studies, University of Bristol, 28-29 September 2006: paper entitled ‘Ignorance versus Inspiration: Reviewing Wordsworth in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine 1817-1825’.

- ‘Crosscurrents in Irish and Scottish Studies’ conference, Queen’s University, Belfast, 7-9 April 2006: paper entitled “A Scottish Mind - a mind astray, but not lost!’ National Characteristics in Lockhart’s Adam Blair and Matthew Wald’. Chair for panel session ‘Constructions of Nation’.

- ‘Constructions of Creativity’ conference, St Chad’s College, University of Durham, 6-8 September 2005: paper entitled “Hear how their bantling has learned to lisp sedition’: Poetry and Politics in J.G. Lockhart’s criticism of Keats.’

- ‘Access and Excess: Transformations of Literary and Visual Culture in the Long Eighteenth Century’ conference, University of Cambridge, 6-7 May 2005: paper entitled ‘Access Denied? J.G. Lockhart, James Hogg and the Blackwood’s Coterie’.

- Cultural Nightmares’ Conference, University of Dundee, 25-26 June 2004: paper given entitled ‘Rediscovered in Translation: J.G. Lockhart’s Gothic Geists’.

- ‘Crosscurrents in Irish and Scottish Studies’ conference, Research Institute of Irish and Scottish Studies (RIISS) University of Aberdeen, 1-3 April 2005: paper given entitled ‘The Wiser and Better View? J.G. Lockhart at the Limits of Romantic Biography’. Chair for panel session ‘The View from Elsewhere: Scottish and Irish Identities’, 2 April 2005. Chair for panel session ‘Other Worlds: Constructions of Identity’, 3 April 2005.  

Current Research

I am currently working on a project examining the evolution of biography in the Romantic period, provisionally entitled 'Romantic Lives: Authorship and Identity 1800-1850'. 

In addition to this research, I have contributed entries to the Cambridge Guide to the Eighteenth Century Novel, 1650-1820, and am undertaking book and peer reviews for a number of journals and publications.

Knowledge Exchange

December 20, 2019: Broadcast interview/discussion about Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, ‘Good Morning Scotland’ programme, BBC Radio Scotland.

Funding and Grants

2002-2006: University of Aberdeen College of Arts and Social Sciences Postgraduate Bursary.

2006: BARS Stephen Copley Postgraduate Research Bursary.

Teaching Responsibilities

I am currently teaching or have previously taught on the following courses:

EL35PN: Victorianism (a third year course).

EL35QR: Scotland into the Modern World: Scottish Literature 1750 - 1935.

EL40GP: Dreams Drugs and Reveries: The poetry of Coleridge and Keats (a fourth year course).

EL43IL: Robert Burns and His World (a fourth year course).

EL45PD: Dickens (a fourth year course).

EL43HT: Romantic Reveries (a fourth year course).

I have supervised a number of successful undergraduate dissertations over several years.

I served as an Adviser of Studies between 2010 and 2013.

I also contribute to the following modules on the M.Litt in English Literary Studies:

- Locations and Dislocations

- Approaching Language and Literature

- The Novel: Environments and Encounters

Non-course Teaching Responsibilities

I have also served as the convenor of the Access for English Studies Course at the University of Aberdeen, as well the University's College for Arts and Social Sciences Summer School .