Staff Profile

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 a 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 and The Gaskell Journal.

Qualifications

PhD in English Literature (2013)
MLitt in English Literature (2008)
BA (Hons) English Literature (2007)

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 Romanticism and the Gold Standard: Money, Literature and Economic Debate in Britain, 1720-1830 by Alexander Dick, Review of English Studies, 65 (272) (November 2014), 943-945.

L. Stokoe. Review of Percy Bysshe Shelley: A Biography by James Bieri, 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 Committee

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 Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies (reviewer)
The Gaskell Journal (reviewer)
The Independent Social Research Foundation - First Book Grant (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: Humanities and Social Sciences Pioneer Award, awarded as Project Lead for Economic Humanities.
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).

School Teaching Roles

Part-Time Teaching Staff Co-ordinator (Literature and Creative Writing)

Current Teaching

Postgraduate Teaching

SEL8533: Radicalisms

Undergraduate Teaching

SEL3420: Fiction and the Philosophy of Terror: From the Supernatural to the Sublime (Module Leader)
SEL2210: Independent Research Project (Module Leader)
SEL2202: Writing New Worlds, 1688-1789

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)
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

Higher Education and Students Conference: Studying English Literature at University (2021-present)
School of Modern Languages Examiner for International Student Streaming Tests (2015-2019)
PARTNERS Summer School (2015-2017)

Office Hours

Thursdays 3-4pm (via Zoom)

I am not teaching in Semester 1, but can arrange in-person or online appointments on request.

Research Day: Friday