Staff Profile
I was awarded my PhD in English Literature from the University of Sheffield in 2015. I've taught at Newcastle since 2016 (after previous teaching at Sheffield and Bishop Grosseteste University).
My PhD thesis explored nostalgia for adolescence in the work of the American Beat writer, William S. Burroughs. I've published work on Burroughs both online and in academic journals, most recently in Comparative American Studies. I've also reviewed Beat Generation criticism for the Times Literary Supplement, Twentieth Century Literature and Journal of American Studies.
My most recent research has concerned the influence of 1960s American publishers Grove Press on the early songwriting of Lou Reed, with particular reference to John Rechy's City of Night, Hubert Selby Jr.'s Last Exit to Brooklyn and Grove's in-house journal, the Evergreen Review. This is for a chapter in a forthcoming essay collection on the music of The Velvet Underground to be published by Bloomsbury.
My research interests include the twentieth-century American novel, literary modernism, intersections between literature and popular music, and silent film.
SEL 1003: Introduction to Literary Studies 1
SEL 1004: Introduction to Literary Studies 2
- Robinson T. Melancholy Blue Child : The enduring appeal of a gay bohemian author: William S. Burroughs. Times Literary Supplement 2020.
- Robinson Thom. “The Riskiest Kind of Writing Available”: Lou Reed, Grove Press, and the Literary Underground. In: Sean Albiez and David Pattie, ed. What Goes On: The Velvet Underground and After. Bloomsbury, 2022. Submitted.
- Robinson T. William Solomon, Slapstick Modernism, Chaplin to Kerouac to Iggy Pop [Book review]. Journal of American Studies 2019, 53(1), E10.
- Robinson Thom. Review essay: Beat Generation criticism (The Cambridge Companion to the Beats. Kerouac: Language, Poetics, and Territory. Beat Drama: Playwrights and Performances of the "Howl" Generation). Twentieth-Century Literature 2017, 63(4), 499-506.
- Robinson Thom. Rub Out the Past: Nostalgia and the Cut-Up Works of William S. Burroughs. Comparative American Studies 2016, 14(2), 109-125.
- Robinson Thom. Burroughs' Library: An Exercise in Biographical Minutiae. European Beat Studies Network, 2011. Available at: https://ebsn.eu/scholarship/articles/thomas-robinson-burroughs-library.
- Robinson Thom. In Cold Blood: William Burroughs' Curse on Truman Capote. RealityStudio, 2011. Available at: https://realitystudio.org/biography/in-cold-blood-william-burroughs-curse-on-truman-capote.
- Robinson Thom. Thoughts on the Burroughs Archive. RealityStudio, 2011. Available at: https://realitystudio.org/scholarship/thoughts-on-the-burroughs-archive.