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Staff Profile

Dr Kirsten MacLeod

Reader in Modernist Print Culture

Background

Role in the School

I am a Reader in Modernist Print Culture and am currently serving as the Programme Lead for the Degree in Literature and History. I teach across all three years of the Literature UG and MA degree programmes on topics including Victorian literature, Visual Culture, Modernism, Periodical Studies, and Book History. I have previously served as Degree Programme Director for SELLL programmes and Director of Excellence in Learning and Teaching (2016-2019). In 2019 I was the recipient of a Vice Chancellor's Education Excellence Award for my support of student learning and staff development during my tenure as Degree Programme Director and Director of Excellence in Learning and Teaching.

Qualifications


PhD English, University of Alberta
MLIS, University of Alberta
MA English, McGill University
BA (Drama and Theatre), McGill University


Memberships


I serve on the Advisory Board for the Research Society of American Periodicals.


I am an active member of the Society for the History of Authorship, Reading and Publishing, the British Association for Decadence Studies, and the Modernist Studies Association.


I was elected to membership of the Grolier Club, the oldest bibliophile society in North America, in 2013.

Research

Research Interests

My research covers American and British print culture of the long fin-de-siècle (1870-1930). Particular interests include: late nineteenth and early twentieth century periodical studies; book history; Aestheticism, Decadence, and Modernism; collectors and collecting culture. My publications have centred on American magazines; Decadence, fin-de-siècle and modernist print culture; and the histories of literary archives. 

Current Work

I am working on a monograph on Van Vechten, critic of music, dance, theatre, and literature; novelist; portrait photographer; unofficial literary agent; and patron of the arts. The monograph explores Van Vechten's long overlooked but important role in shaping Modernism in America in the first half of the twentieth century. 

Forthcoming publications include chapters on the Decadent book as material object for the Oxford Handbook of Decadence; The Beautiful and Damned and Literary Decadence for the Cambridge Companion to F. Scott Fitzgerald; and the flaneur aesthetic of M'lle New York for a volume of essays, Modernity and the Periodical Press.

Recent publications include American Little Magazines of the fin de siècle: Art, Protest, and Cultural Transformation with University of Toronto Press (2018), winner of the Research Society for American Periodicals Book Prize 2017-2018, and a critical edition of Carl Van Vechten's 1923 novel, The Blind Bow-Boy with MHRA (2018). 

Postgraduate Supervision

I welcome applications from research students interested in Aestheticism and Decadence; periodical studies; late-Victorian and Modernist print culture; 19th and early 20th-century transatlantic literary networks; and publishing history.

I am currently co-supervisor of postgraduate research on Agatha Christie and on science fiction pulp magazines. 

Esteem Indicators

Winner of the Research Society for American Periodicals Book Prize, 2017-2018 for American Little Magazines of the fin de siècle: Art, Protest and Cultural Transformation

Member of Advisory Board, Research Society for American Periodicals (2019- )

Funding

  • Aid to Scholarly Publishing Grant, Canadian Federation of Humanities and Social Sciences (2016)
  • Eccles Eccles Centre Visiting Fellowship in American Studies, British Library (2012)
  • Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) Standard Research Grant (2008-2012) 
  • Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center Fellowship (2004-2005)
  • SSHRC Post-doctoral Fellowship (2002-2004)
Teaching

Undergraduate Teaching (2020-2021)

SEL1003 Introduction to Literary Studies I

SEL1030 Close Reading

SEL2204 Victorian Passions

SEL2218 Literature and History Research Project

SEL3404 Jazz-Age Literature in the Magazines 


Postgraduate Teaching (2020-2021)

SEL8674 Research Methods



Publications