Dr Philip Trotter

Career Development Research Fellow in English

Subjects

Biography

I specialise in the literature and culture of the 'long' eighteenth century. Before joining St John's College, I completed my PhD in English, with a Collaborative Specialisation in Book History and Print Culture, at the University of Toronto. I also hold an MA in English from McMaster University.

Research Interests

My research has been characterised by several interdisciplinary concerns: the relationship between literature and discourse; the moral and aesthetic aspects of affectivity; and the theories and practices of authorship, with an emphasis on their engagement with ideas about identity and belief. In my dissertation, which I am preparing for publication as a monograph, I explored the ways in which eighteenth-century authors developed 'excessive' rhetorical strategies from the discourses of sentiment and the sublime to communicate and persuade their readers of what it is right to do and what it is good to be in an age distinguished by social, cultural, and intellectual change.
My current research is on the life and works of Samuel Richardson, who is an exception to the assumption that eighteenth-century authors and trade professionals worked independently and approached the creation, transmission, and reception of books with different, or even conflicting priorities. I am interested in the ways in which Richardson's works and creative achievement may be interpreted and re-evaluated, respectively, when his practices as an author and as a printer are theorised as co-constitutive.
I have also published articles on the Bluestockings Sarah Scott and Lady Barbara Montagu, the religious poetics of Christopher Smart, and Laurence Sterne and Sterneana.

Recent publications