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Max Saunders

Professor Max Saunders

Visiting Professor

Research interests

  • Literature

Biography

I am primarily a literary critic, specialising in the 19th and 20th centuries, and especially in turn-of-the-century and Modernist fiction, criticism, and poetry.

Research Interests and PhD Supervision

The three main strands of my current and projected research, which frequently intertwine, are:

  • The development of Modernist writing; in particular the literary networks associated with Ford Madox Ford, and the relation between Modernism and the First World War;
  • Life-Writing, with a particular emphasis on the relation between auto/biography and fiction from 1870-1930;
  • Literary Impressionism and its relation to Modernism.

I welcome enquiries from prospective research students in any of my areas of research interest. For more details, please see my full research profile.

Teaching

Most of my recent BA teaching has been on courses on Modernist fiction and poetics, the Literature of the First World War, Literature and Impressionism, and Autobiography and Modern Self-Representation. I teach on MA courses in Biographical Writing and Autobiographical Writing.

Expertise and Public Engagement

I specialise in Modernism, Literary Impressionism, the First World War, Literature and Science, and Life Writing. I have been interviewed for television, radio, and film, about Ford Madox Ford, T. S. Eliot, and the Faculty’s annual Arts & Humanities Festivals in October, which I’ve been responsible for as Director of the Arts & Humanities Research Institute since 2012.

I’m also the lead investigator on the project ‘Ego-Media’, funded by the European Research Council, and studying the impact of digital and social media on how we present ourselves online.

I am the Co-Director with Professor Clare Brant of the interdisciplinary Centre for Life-Writing Research formed by the Department in 2006, which continues to organise related events bringing together scholars and life-writing practitioners.  I would welcome applications from students wishing to research any aspect of life writing, including the writing of literary biography and the critical study of auto/biography.

I am committed to European collaboration, and have been a partner in and member of the ‘Scientific Committee’ of three EC-funded thematic networks run from the University of Bologna: COTEPRA (on Comparative Literature in Theory and Practice), ACUME (on cultural memory), and ACUME-2, focusing on the interface between the sciences and humanities.

    Research

    ego media
    Ego Media

    .Ego-Media , a 5-year ERC-funded Advanced Grant project on the impact of new media on self presentation, ran from 2014-19

    News

    Creating a lasting impact for the exhibition that opened and closed within two days

    A new exhibition in the Arcade at Bush House, ‘Alfred Cohen: An American Artist in Europe’ opened on Monday 16 March for a bittersweet two day run, before...

    The exhibition at Bush House Arcade

    Events

    07Mar

    EGO MEDIA

    Do we now live in the age of ‘ego media’?

    Please note: this event has passed.

      Research

      ego media
      Ego Media

      .Ego-Media , a 5-year ERC-funded Advanced Grant project on the impact of new media on self presentation, ran from 2014-19

      News

      Creating a lasting impact for the exhibition that opened and closed within two days

      A new exhibition in the Arcade at Bush House, ‘Alfred Cohen: An American Artist in Europe’ opened on Monday 16 March for a bittersweet two day run, before...

      The exhibition at Bush House Arcade

      Events

      07Mar

      EGO MEDIA

      Do we now live in the age of ‘ego media’?

      Please note: this event has passed.