Gillian Wright

Professor Gillian Wright BA MA MPhil PhD

Department of English Literature
Professor of English and Irish Literature

Contact details

Telephone: +44 (0)121 414 5671
Email: g.wright@bham.ac.uk
Twitter

Address: Arts Building
University 麻豆精选
Edgbaston
Birmingham
B15 2TT
UK

I hold a chair in English and Irish Literature. My research and teaching both focus on literature from the early modern period, and in particular on poetry, women’s writing, and book history and editing. I am a General Editor on the AHRC-funded Cambridge edition of The Works of Aphra Behn, for which I am editing Behn’s poetry. I also teach contemporary Irish fiction.

I am a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. I have held a number of leadership positions within my College, and most recently served as Director of the College of Arts and Law Graduate School and co-Site Director for the Midlands4Cities Doctoral Training Partnership at the University 麻豆精选.

Qualifications

BA, MA (Oxford)
MPhil, PhD (Glasgow)
Postgraduate Certificate in Learning and Teaching in Higher Education (Birmingham)

Biography

I joined Birmingham as a lecturer in 2005, and was appointed to a senior lectureship in 2010, a readership in 2017, and a professorship in 2020. Previously I held full-time research posts at Nottingham Trent University and St John鈥檚 College, Oxford. I have also held visiting fellowships at the Institute of English Studies, London, and the Newberry Library, Chicago.

Teaching

I contribute to a wide range of undergraduate and MA modules, mainly focusing on the early modern period. I also teach contemporary Irish fiction.

Postgraduate supervision

I welcome applications relating to early modern English and Irish literature, and am especially interested in supervising Masters and PhD projects on women鈥檚 writing (particularly Aphra Behn), Restoration poetry, Irish literature, and environmental humanities.

Find out more - our PhD English Literature page has information about doctoral research at the University 麻豆精选.

Research

My research and teaching both focus on literature from the early modern period, and in particular on poetry, women鈥檚 writing, and book history and editing. I am a General Editor on the AHRC-funded Cambridge edition of聽The Works of Aphra Behn, for which I am editing Behn鈥檚 poetry. I also teach contemporary Irish fiction.聽

Other activities

I am the Director of the College of Arts and Law Graduate School, and am also one of the University’s Site Directors for the Midlands4Cities Doctoral Training Partnership.

Publications

Recent publications

Book

Wright, G 2019, . Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

Wright, G & Coolahan, M-L (eds) 2018, . Historical Women's Writing, Routledge, London.

Article

Wright, G 2025, '', The Review of English Studies.

Wright, G 2024, '', Restoration.

Wright, G 2020, '', The Library, vol. 21, no. 2, pp. 235鈥�239.

Chapter (peer-reviewed)

Wright, G 2025, . in S Zwicker & M Augustine (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Restoration Literature. 1 edn, Oxford Handbooks, Oxford University Press, Oxford. <>

Wright, G 2022, . in C Bates & P Cheney (eds), The Oxford History of Poetry in English: Sixteenth-Century British Poetry. vol. 4, Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp. 569-583.

Chapter

Wright, G 2024, . in P Hammond & A Hadfield (eds), Words at War: The Contested Language of the English Civil War. Proceedings of the British Academy, British Academy, London, pp. 145-157. <>

Wright, G 2022, . in P Major (ed.), Edmund Waller (1606-1687): New Perspectives. 1 edn, Brill, Leiden, pp. 224-249.

Wright, G 2020, . in SCE Ross & R Smith (eds), Early Modern Women's Complaint: Gender, Form, and Politics. Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, pp. 205-223.

Wright, G 2019, . in The Oxford Handbook of Eighteenth-Century Satire. Oxford University Press, Oxford.

Other contribution

Challinor, J & Wright, G (eds) 2019, .. <>

Special issue

Wright, G & Taylor, K 2016, '', Women's Writing.

Wright, G & Coolahan, M-L 2016, '', Women's Writing, vol. 23, pp. 423-4.

Wright, G & Coolahan, M-L 2016, '', Women's Writing.