Professor Catherine Jones

Professor Catherine Jones
Professor Catherine Jones
Professor Catherine Jones

MA, PhD (Cambridge)

Personal Chair

Accepting PhDs

About
Email Address
c.a.jones@abdn.ac.uk
Telephone Number
+44 (0)1224 273759
Office Address
B09 Taylor Building
Old Aberdeen Campus
High Street
AB24 3UB

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School/Department
School of Language, Literature, Music and Visual Culture

Biography

I studied English as an undergraduate at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, where I also completed my PhD. I taught British and American Literature at the University of Galway (1997-99), before moving to the University of Aberdeen to hold the posts of Lecturer (2000-13),  Senior Lecturer (2013-19), and Personal Chair (2019-). I have been Director of Research for the School of Language, Literature, Music and Visual Culture (2019-22), and Programme Coordinator for the Intercalated BSc. (Hons) in Medical Sciences: Medical Humanities (2011-20).

I have held visiting posts at various institutions including the College of William and Mary (Visiting Professor of English, 2004), the Scaliger Institute, Leiden University (Visiting Fellow, supported by a Royal Society of Edinburgh / Caledonian Research Fund European Visiting Research Fellowship and a Leverhulme Trust International Academic Fellowship, 2017-18), and the Kunstkamera (Visiting Scholar, 2018). In 2022 I held a Derek Brewer Visiting Fellowship at Emmanuel College, Cambridge.

I am a Senior Fellow of the UK's Higher Education Academy (2017-). I am a past president of the Eighteenth-Century Scottish Studies Society (2014-16). I currently serve as a member of UKRI's Future Leaders Fellowships Peer Review College.

 

Qualifications

  • PhD English 
    1997 - University of Cambridge 
  • MA English 
    1994 - University of Cambridge  
  • BA Hons English 
    1991 - University of Cambridge 

Memberships and Affiliations

Internal Memberships

Director of Research, School of Language, Literature, Music and Visual Culture (August 2019-July 2022)

Deputy Director of Research, School of Language, Literature, Music and Visual Culture (August 2018-July 2019)

Discipline Research Lead in English (August 2015-July 2022)

Academic Line Manager, School of Language, Literature, Music and Visual Culture (January 2016-July 2019)

Programme Coordinator, Intercalated BSc. (Hons) Medical Sciences: Medical Humanities (August 2011-July 2020)

External Memberships

Member of UKRI’s Future Leaders Fellowships Peer Review College (2021-)

Member, Nineteenth-Century Experimental Song Collective (2020-)

External examiner, MLitt in English Studies, University of Dundee (2019-22)

 

Prizes and Awards

Winner of the 2015 Book Prize of the British Association for American Studies for the best published book in American Studies in the previous year for Literature and Music in the Atlantic World, 1767-1867 (Edinburgh University Press, 2014).

 

 

Research

Research Overview

Anglophone literature; comparative literature; literature in dialogue with other arts; early modern print and manuscript culture; eighteenth-century and Romantic studies; historical musicology; history of the Atlantic world; colonialism, war, and the growth of empire; the ‘new’ humanities (digital, environmental, medical, and public).

Research Areas

Accepting PhDs

I am currently accepting PhDs in English, History, Music.


Please get in touch if you would like to discuss your research ideas further.

Email Me

English

Supervising
Accepting PhDs

History

Supervising
Accepting PhDs

Music

Supervising
Accepting PhDs

Research Specialisms

  • Russian and East European Studies
  • Musicology
  • English Literature 1700 -1900
  • Scottish Literature
  • North American Literature Studies

Our research specialisms are based on the Higher Education Classification of Subjects (HECoS) which is HESA open data, published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence.

Current Research

I am currently writing a book on the interrelation of life-writing and portraiture in early modern Europe and Russia, focusing on the period from the 1648 Ukrainian Cossack Uprising to the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815. 

I am also working on a series of essays on literature and virtuosic piano music in the 'long' nineteenth century. I study piano -- including historical performance practices -- with Scottish pianist, Alan MacLean.

Past Research

My first monograph, Literary Memory (Bucknell University Press, 2003), examined the relationship between memory and writing in the long eighteenth century, focusing on the Waverley Novels of Walter Scott and their influence in North America. I continue to publish on Scott, particularly his treatment of Scottish history, and his influence on nineteenth-century literature, music and painting. 

My second monograph, Literature and Music in the Atlantic World, 1767-1867 (Edinburgh University Press, 2014), provided the first interdisciplinary account of the interweaving of literary and musical genres in this period of transatlantic history. It was awarded the British Association for American Studies annual book prize for the best book in American Studies. 

 

Collaborations

Research Collaborations

I contributed a chapter on 'King's College and Marischal College in the Age of Romanticism', for 525 Years in the Pursuit of Truth: A New History of The University of Aberdeen, edited by Bradford Bow and Michael Brown (Aberdeen University Press, 2025). My podcast, 'James Beattie (1735-1803): Philosopher and Poet', is drawn from my chapter for this volume. 

For details of other research collaborations that led to edited collections and special journal issues, see my list of publications.

Research Network Involvement

2022-24: ‘Astronomical and Medical Knowledge from the Baltic to East Central Europe, 1550-1750’, funded by the AHRC (PI: Cassie Gorman, Anglia Ruskin University)

2017-19: ‘Romantic National Song Network’, funded by the Royal Society of Edinburgh, with support from the British Library, the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, and the Society for Musicology in Ireland (PI Kirsteen McCue, University of Glasgow).

2016-17: ‘Institutions of Literature, 1700-1900’, funded by the AHRC research networking scheme (PI: Matthew Sangster, University of Glasgow)

2013-19: ‘Northern Network for Medical Humanities Research’, funded by the Wellcome Trust and the AHRC (PI: Jane Macnaughton, Durham University)

2011-13: ‘Medical Humanities Research Network Scotland’, funded by the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the Scottish Government (PI: David Shuttleton, University of Glasgow, and Gavin Millar, University of Glasgow)

2003-13: Scotland’s Transatlantic Relations Project, funded by the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland (PI: Susan Manning, University of Edinburgh)

 

Supervision

My current supervision areas are: English, History, Music.

At the postgraduate level I welcome applications for research projects on aspects of British, continental European and North American literature of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, on literature in dialogue with other arts (especially music), and on literature, medicine and science. I am happy to accept students wishing to take a distance PhD.

I am currently supervising: 

Ms Isabella Engberg, 'Travelling Ecology: Nature and Self in Naturalist Voyage Narratives' (University of Aberdeen PhD Thesis, in progress).

My past doctoral students include: 

Dr Matthew Lee, 'Private Reflections and Public Pronouncements: Caribbean Slavery in the Scottish Consciousness, 1750-1834' (University of Aberdeen PhD Thesis, awarded 2022).

Dr Natalie Harries, 'Romantic Esotericism, Neoplatonism and Hinduism in the Poetry of Coleridge and Shelley' (University of Aberdeen PhD Thesis, awarded 2018).

Dr Candice Smith, 'Architecture, Politics and Gender in the Gothic Novel of the 1790s' (University of Aberdeen PhD Thesis, awarded 2014).

Dr Stephanie Saint, 'The Conflict between Creativity and Economic Circumstance in the Selected Prose Work of Herman Melville' (University of Aberdeen PhD Thesis, awarded 2013).

Dr Steffi Metze: 'An Imperial Enlightenment? Notions of India and the Literati of Edinburgh' (University of Aberdeen PhD Thesis, awarded 2011).

Funding and Grants

2018: I held a Leverhulme Trust International Academic Fellowship at the Scaliger Institute, Leiden University.

2017: My research on the Edinburgh-Leiden medical nexus was supported by a grant from the Caledonian Research Foundation / the Royal Society of Edinburgh, held at the Scaliger Institute, Leiden University.

2013: I was awarded a grant from the Wellcome Trust (Humanities and Social Sciences funding area) in support of the 2013 annual conference of the Association for Medical Humanities, which was held in Aberdeen on the theme of 'Global Medical Humanities'.

2003-13: My research on literature and music in the Atlantic world was supported by grants from the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland (2003, 2009, 2012, and 2013) and the British Academy (2004-6).

Teaching

Teaching Responsibilities

2024-2025

First half session

EL50C5: The Novel: Environments and Encounters (seminars)

EL40HQ: Literature and Medicine (convenor; seminars)

EL30XR: Romanticism (convenor; lectures and seminars)

Second half session

EL5920: Dissertation in Literature, Environments and Places

EL55D3: Places and Environments: Critical Dialogues

EL45HC: Literature and Music (co-convenor; seminars)

EL4502: English Dissertation (supervisions)

EL2517: Power, Equality and Empire (lectures and tutorials)

 

Publications

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  • Scotland Abroad: Northern Europe

    Jones, C.
    The Cambridge History of Scottish Literature. Duncan, I. (ed.). Cambridge University Press
    Chapters in Books, Reports and Conference Proceedings: Chapters
  • King's College and Marischal College in the Age of Romanticism

    Jones, C.
    525 Years in the Pursuit of Truth: A New History of the University of Aberdeen. Bow, B., Brown, M. (eds.). Aberdeen University Press
    Chapters in Books, Reports and Conference Proceedings: Chapters
  • 'Translations' from Poetry to Music: Concepts of Nature in Byron's 'Childe Harold's Pilgrimage' (1812-18) and Liszt's 'Album d'un voyageur' (1842)

    Jones, C.
    Romantic Ecologies: Selected Papers from the Augsburg Conference of the German Society for English Romanticism. Kerr, D., Middeke, M. (eds.). Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier, pp. 267-278, 12 pages
    Chapters in Books, Reports and Conference Proceedings: Chapters
  • Gerard Lee McKeever, 'Dialectics of Improvement: Scottish Romanticism, 1786–1831' Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2020

    Jones, C.
    Eighteenth-Century Scotland, vol. 36, pp. 42-43
    Contributions to Journals: Reviews of Books, Films and Articles
  • Irish Romanticism

    Jones, C.
    A History of Irish Women's Poetry. Darcy, A., Wheatley, D. (eds.). Cambridge University Press, pp. 105-126, 21 pages
    Chapters in Books, Reports and Conference Proceedings: Chapters
  • 525 Years in the Pursuit of Truth Podcast: James Beattie (1735-1803): Philosopher and Poet

    Bow, C. (ed.), Jones, C.
    Non-textual Forms: Digital or Visual Products
  • Memoir of the Early Life of William Cowper, Esq. by William Cowper

    Jones, C. A.
    Disability Experiences: Memoirs, Autobiographies, and Other Personal Narratives. Couser, G. T., Mintz, S. B. (eds.). Gale, pp. 487-491, 5 pages
    Chapters in Books, Reports and Conference Proceedings: Chapters
  • Hume as Man of Letters: Comments on Harris's 'Hume: An Intellectual Biography'

    Jones, C.
    Hume Studies, vol. 45, no. 1-2, pp. 7-16
    Contributions to Journals: Reviews of Books, Films and Articles
  • Collectors of Natural Knowledge: The Edinburgh Medical Society and the Associational Culture of Scotland and the North Atlantic World in the Eighteenth Century

    Jones, C.
    Journal of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh, vol. 48, no. 2, pp. 155-164
    Contributions to Journals: Articles
  • Writer-Physicians

    Jones, C. A.
    The Oxford Handbook of British Romanticism. Duff, D. (ed.). Oxford University Press, pp. 355-370, 16 pages
    Chapters in Books, Reports and Conference Proceedings: Chapters
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