Staff Profile
Dr Leanne Stokoe
Lecturer in Eighteenth-Century Literature
- Telephone: +44 (0) 191 208 7782
- Personal Website: https://newcastle.academia.edu/LeanneStokoe
I was awarded my PhD in Romantic-era literature. Funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, this project comprised a chronological study of Percy Bysshe Shelley's prose writings, ranging from his earliest pamphlet, The Necessity of Atheism (1811), to his final major essay, A Defence of Poetry (1821). Exploring the ways in which Shelley's writing engages with eighteenth and early nineteenth-century political economy, it argued that his fascination with economic affairs shapes, as well as is influenced by, his inclusive definition of Poetry. Contrary to his reputation as a idealistic, or even escapist poet, my thesis presented Shelley as an economic theorist in his own right.
My current work focuses upon questioning Romantic hostility towards the mathematical and demographic methods of political economy, drawing attention to the ways in which the writings of Adam Smith, Jeremy Bentham, Thomas Robert Malthus, and David Ricardo contain imaginative propensities. My broader research interests include Romanticism and genre, utilitarian ethics and economics, and the philosophies of the Scottish Enlightenment. I am particularly interested in the ways in which economic discourse in this period can be viewed as a literary, as well as social or political form.
I was funded by the British Association for Romantic Studies to undertake manuscript research in The British Library and University College London, focusing on the correspondence between Bentham, Mill, Malthus, and Ricardo. I was also granted permission by the Bodleian Library, University of Oxford, to access Shelley's intermediate draft of his Defence, as part of my work on re-evaluating the poet's economic worldview.
Between July 2019 and January 2020 I was a Teaching Fellow in Eighteenth-Century Literature at Newcastle University. Since January 2020 I have been a Lecturer in Eighteenth-Century Literature at Newcastle University. At present I teach eighteenth-century, Romantic-era, and Victorian literature, and am writing a monograph that focuses on the role of imagination in political economy from its origins in the Scottish Enlightenment to its rise as an utilitarian science.
I am a referee for The Review of Politics (University of Notre Dame, Cambridge University Press) and the Independent Social Research Foundation's First Book Grant competition. I am also a reviewer for The Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies,The Gaskell Journal, and the Routledge 'Economics' series.
Qualifications
PhD in English Literature (2013)
MLitt in English Literature (2008)
BA (Hons) English Literature (2007)
Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (in progress)
Introduction to Learning and Teaching in Higher Education Certificate (Part A) (2009)
Publications
Essays
L. Stokoe and J. Heim. "Precarity and Progression: Reflections of a Part-Time Teaching Staff Co-ordinator." The
Institute of English Studies (School of Advanced Studies, 2022).
L. Stokoe. "'The Vile Ingredients' of 'the Wholesome Mixture': A Portrait of Bernard Mandeville and Adam Smith". The Integrity Project (British Academy, 2015).
Book Reviews
L. Stokoe. Review of Victorian Fictions of Middle-Class Status. Forms of Absence in the Age of Reform by Albert D. Pionke, The Gaskell Journal (forthcoming, December 2023).
L. Stokoe. Review of Romanticism and the Gold Standard: Money, Literature and Economic Debate in Britain, 1720-1830 by
Alexander Dick, The Review of English Studies, 65 (272) (November 2014), 943-945.
L. Stokoe. Review of Percy Bysshe Shelley: A Biography by James Bieri, The Journal for Eighteenth Century Studies, Vol. 3, Issue 1 (March 2010), 121-2.
Research Groups and School Committees
Project Lead for Economic Humanities (NUHRI)
Co-organiser of the North East Research Group for Commerce and Culture (NECC)
Athena Swan Self Assessment Team (SAT)
Education Forum
Memberships
The Keats-Shelley Memorial Association (KSMA)
British Association for Romantic Studies (BARS)
Centre for Nineteenth-Century Studies (CNCS)
Portraits of Integrity Reading Group (British Academy)
The North East Forum in Eighteenth-Century and Romantic Studies
Republican Reading Group
Editorial Boards
The Review of Politics (referee)
The Review of English Studies (reviewer)
The Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies (reviewer)
The Gaskell Journal (reviewer)
The Independent Social Research Foundation First Book Grant (reviewer)
Routledge Economics Books (reviewer)
Public Engagement
L. Stokoe. 'The Bard may die, the Thresher survive': The poetry of Stephen Duck and Mary Collier.
Public lecture presented to the Newcastle Corn Riots Project (Heaton History Group), 26 May 2021 (funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund, the Joicey Trust and Newcastle City Council).
Awards
2022: Vice Chancellor's 'Celebrating Success' Event: Athena Swan Bronze Award Renewal.
2022: Newcastle University Humanities Research Institute Pioneer Award, awarded as Project Lead for Economic Humanities
to fund '(Re)Imagining Value: An Interdisciplinary Symposium'.
2022: 'Outstanding Contribution to Academic Support', The Education Awards (TEAs) (Nominee)
2020: 'Outstanding Contribution to Teaching (HASS)', The Education Awards (TEAs) (Nominee)
2019: SELLL Strategic Fund, awarded as co-organiser of the North East Research Group for Commerce and Culture.
2013: AHRC Collaborative Skills Award made to the North East Postgraduate Research Group for the Long Nineteenth
Century (NENC) to fund the public engagement and postgraduate training project: 'Cultivating Community: A Case
Study of Lord Armstrong and the Victorian North East'.
2012: British Society for Literature and Science (BSLS) Small Grants Scheme, awarded as co-organiser for the
NENC 'Moving Towards Science in the Long Nineteenth Century' symposium.
2010: British Association for Romantic Studies Stephen Copley Postgraduate Award.
2008: Arts and Humanities Research Council Full Doctoral Award (Open Competition).
Current Teaching
Postgraduate Teaching
SEL8533: Radicalisms
Undergraduate Teaching
SEL3420: Fiction and the Philosophy of Terror: From the Supernatural to the Sublime (Module Leader)
SEL2202: Writing New Worlds, 1688-1789
Past School Roles
Part-Time Teaching Staff Co-ordinator (Literature and Creative Writing) (2021-2023)
Teaching Fellow in Eighteenth-Century Literature (2019-2020)
Past Teaching
SEL8047: MA Dissertation (2020-2021)
SEL3362: Dissertation in English Literature (2019-2021)
SEL3373: Women of Virtue and Women of Pleasure: Sensibility in the Age of Reason (2018-2021)
SEL2203: Revolutionary Britain, 1789-1832 (2018-2019)
SEL2210: Independent Research Project (2013-2023)
SEL2204: Victorian Passions, Victorian Values (2011-2017)
SEL1030: Approaches to Reading (2015-2016)
SEL3017: Women's Writing, 1720-1820 (2010)
SEL1003 and SEL1004: Introduction to Literary Studies I and II (2009-2017)
Wider Faculty Teaching and Student Recruitment
PARTNERS Summer School (2015-present)
Higher Education and Students Conference: Studying English Literature at University (2021-present)
School of Modern Languages Examiner for International Student Streaming Tests (2015-2019)
Office Hours
Tuesdays 1-2pm and Wednesdays 1-2pm (in person)
Thursdays 3-4pm (via Zoom)
Research Day: Friday