National University of Ireland, Maynooth

Faculty Member, English

Lecturer

National University of Ireland Maynooth

About

I am an eighteenth-century literary scholar... PhD  Cambridge (UK) 1994.  I published two books, one on William Cowper (Bucknell, 2004) and  one on Thomas Sheridan the younger - actor-manager-elocutionist - (Bucknell, 2011).  I've published papers on authors as diverse as Samuel Johnson, James Beattie, Charles Churchill and Frances Burney.

I'm co-editing (with Tanya Cassidy and Martha Zabrowski) a special issue of the Journal for Eighteenth Century Studies) on sport and the Olympics.

Always interested in issues of gender and performance, I'm also drawn back time and time again to the mechanics of poetry itself - something that's underwhelmingly theorized I tend to think.  I'm also fascinated by oratory in all its forms and have a big investment in the recuperation of the published speech as a literary form.

My next big project is Canada.  In particular, I'm interested in ways that Ireland and Canada rhetorically construct each other in the years between 1763 and 1867.  So there's book number three.  Prestigious publishers - please form an orderly queue.

Then I'd love to do something major on Matthew Prior (the poet and diplomat - not the England wicket-keeper) - the most underrated poet in the canon?  Discuss?

Twitter name = cobrunstrom.  Follow if bored.