Department of English

Academic Staff

 

My central research focus is on Australian, New Zealand and Irish poetry. I have published on the oral tradition in Aboriginal and Maori texts as well as on individual authors including Peter Bland. Peter Goldsworthy, Les Murray, Robert Sullivan and Hone Tuwhare. A long-term project on literary relations between Germany and New Zealand (a wider field than might appear at first glance) continues to be ongoing and open-ended.

Born in the UK, I read Modern Languages (French and German, with a special emphasis on German language and literature) at the Universities of Oxford (BA), London (MA) and Manchester (PhD). Relocating to Germany in 1970, I spent most of my working life up to my retirement in 2007 as a lecturer/senior lecturer in the Department of English Studies at Aachen University of Technology (RWTH Aachen). My teaching there covered a range of subjects – from practical language classes to literary studies and linguistics. Having always found teaching every bit as rewarding as research, I particularly enjoyed teaching Landeskunde/cultural studies – an area not infrequently viewed as the Cinderella of the subject but arguably the core area that underpins the whole discipline.

I am an honorary member of GAPS and was a founding member of its predecessor GNEL/ASNEL (the Association for the Study of the New Literatures in English.) I am also a member of EACLALS and APSA.

 

Selected publications

2018

“Oral Goes Viral: Reversing the print revolution.” In: Transnational Literature 10,2: special feature: “Voices from the Margins.” Guest editors: Lioba Schreyer & Lena Mattheis.
https://dspace.flinders.edu.au/xmlui/handle/2328/37989 (accessed 30 December 2021).

2012

“Ut pictura poiesis: Paintings and Painters in the Poetry of Peter Bland.” In: Engaging with Literature of Commitment – Volume 2: The Worldly Scholar, ed. Gordon Collier, Marc Delrez, Anne Fuchs & Bénédicte Ledent (Amsterdam & New York, NY: Rodopi [Cross/Cultures 149]): 279–92. Print.

2011

“A Poetics of Political Commitment: Robert Sullivan and Human Rights.” In: Experiences of Freedom in Postcolonial Literatures and Cultures, ed. Annalisa Oboe & Shaul Bassi. (London & New York: Routledge): 328–40. Print.

2008

“‘Er war ein Berliner!’ Hone Tuwhare in Germany.” In: ka mate ka ora: a new zealand journal of poetry and poetics 6. [Online peer-reviewed journal. Guest editor: Robert Sullivan.] http://www.nzepc.auckland.ac.nz/kmko/06/ka_mate06_marsden.asp (accessed 12 June 2019).

2003

“From ‘carefully modulated murmur’ to ‘not a place for sooks’: New Zealand ways of writing English.” In: The Politics of English as a World Language: New Horizons in Postcolonial Cultural Studies, ed. Christian Mair (Amsterdam/New York, NY: Rodopi [Cross/Cultures 65/ASNEL Papers 7]): 407–18. Print.

2002

“From Erewhon to Nowhere: A leitmotif of New Zealand poetry?” In: Missions of  Interdependence: A Literary Directory, ed. Gerhard Stilz (Amsterdam/New York: Rodopi [Cross/Cultures 58/ASNEL Papers 6]): 365–76. Print.

1999

“Seamus Heaney and ‘the north/south axis of the European mind.’” In: Contemporary European Literature: Common Tendencies and Developments in European Languages with an Emphasis on Narrative Poetry, ed. Hans Felten & David Nelting (Frankfurt etc.: Lang [Studien und Dokumente zur Geschichte der Romanischen Literaturen 37]): 99–106. Print.

1994

“Poeta doctor: Peter Goldsworthy’s diagnosis of some modern ills.” In: Traditionalism vs. Modernism, ed. Erhard Reckwitz, Lucia Vennarini & Cornelia Wegener (Essen: Die Blaue Eule [Yearbook of the Association for the Study of the New Literatures in English 3]): 161–79. Print.

1993

“Imitators and Innovators: Formal experimentation in Australian and New Zealand Verse.” In: Imagination and the Creative Impulse in the New Literatures in English, ed. M.-T. Bindella & G.V. Davis (Amsterdam/Atlanta, GA: Rodopi [Cross/Cultures 9]): 247–69. Print.

1990

“Paradise Mislaid: The hostile reception of Les A. Murray’s poem ‘The Liberated Plague.’” In: Crisis and Creativity in the New Literatures in English, ed. Geoffrey V. Davis & Jena Maes-Jelinek (Amsterdam/Atlanta, GA: Rodopi [Cross/Cultures 1]): 265–89. Print.