Katherine Baxter

Biography

Following my first degree in English and Hebrew, I was awarded my Ph.D. from the University of Glasgow in July 2003. I then worked for several years in London both as a lecturer and as a cataloguer and curator at the British Library. In 2007 I was appointed as Research Assistant Professor in Cross-Cultural Studies in English at the University of Hong Kong. I then moved, in 2010, to the United States where I was a lecturer at Stanford University before joining Northumbria University in 2011. My work is characterized by my longstanding interest in cross-cultural and interdisciplinary scholarship. Modernist, colonial and postcolonial literatures form the main focus of my research alongside an interest in literary multilingualism.

Research Interest

My two main areas of research are modernism, in particular the work of Joseph Conrad, and colonial and postcolonial literatures. I am also General Editor of English: The Journal of the English Association. My current monograph project, Imagined States: Law and Literature in Nigeria (EUP 2018), examines the complex, transnational relationships between literature, jurisprudence, and legal practice in late colonial and early postcolonial Nigeria. In Conrad studies I have published widely, most recently editing Conrad and Language with Professor Robert Hampson (EUP 2016). My monograph, Joseph Conrad and The Swan Song of Romance, explores Conrad’s use of classical romance forms throughout his oeuvre (Ashgate 2010). In 2012 this book received ‘Honourable Mention’ for the Adam Gillon Book Award, presented quadrenially by the Joseph Conrad Society of America. I am co-editor of Conrad’s Plays for Cambridge University Press’s series, The Works of Joseph Conrad, with Professor Richard Hand (CUP 2018). This is an exciting project, which collects together for the first time all Conrad’s plays with The Book of Job, his only literary translation from Polish, and his film scenario, Gaspar The Strongman. I am also involved in research on the First World War, co-editing the Edinburgh Companion to the First World War in the Arts with Dr. Ann-Marie Einhaus, (EUP 2017). I am a member of the North East WW1 Research Forum, and have been involved in other WW1 projects during the centenary commemorations (see Current and Recent Projects). I am a member of the AHRC Peer Review College and act as an expert reviewer for several academic publishers and journals.