The Long 18th Century Research Group

An overview of research highlights, projects and activity within The Long 18th Century research group:

• 18th Century Narrative Project carries out research into the phenomenon of narrative formation in the period. Linked with other SW institutions and with international partners, it hosts regular conferences and workshops.
• Conferences and workshops held on Narrating the Eighteenth Century; Narrative and Material Culture, 1680-1830; Quest Narratives in the Long Eighteenth Century; Reconciling Reform and Revolution in an Age of Reaction; Romantic Animals.
• Access to excellent resources including the Hypatia Collection, Devon and Exeter Institute, Brooks Collection, Eighteenth-Century periodicals and Gale Digital Archive.
• Postgraduate research activity supported through the AHRC Collaborative Research Training Scheme providing access to funding and other activities.
• Success in gaining support from AHRC, Leverhulme, British Academy and others.
• Links to the Centre for Early Modern Studies.
• Research interests include Enlightenment philosophy and modernity, particularly utilitarianism; animal and human in the Enlightenment; science, medicine, politics  and aesthetics; the development of British national identity; British responses to the French Revolution;  women's literary history and feminist theory; 18th century poetics; satire and print culture; forgery and authenticity; the Arabian Nights’ Entertainments and orientalism; children's literature; eco-criticism; new readings of Romanticism and nature;  literary biography; Islam and women's poetry; the reception of classical texts and ideas;  the epic tradition; Romantic poetry;  the Gothic and Romantic medievalism; Fielding; Smollett; Sterne; Burney; Austen.