Dr. M.S. (Michael) Newton

Position:
  • Lecturer
Expertise:
  • English language and culture
  • English literature / philology


Telephone number: +31 (0)71 527 2165
E-Mail: m.newton@hum.leidenuniv.nl
Faculty / Department: Faculteit der Geesteswetenschappen, Institute for Cultural Disciplines, Moderne Engelstalige letterkunde
Office Address: Witte Singel-complex
P.N. van Eyckhof 4
2311 BV Leiden
Room number 2.05b

Fields of interest

English Literature, 1848-1918; the history and representation of feral children; the history and literature of assassination, 1850-1918; Victorian and Edwardian ghost stories; Victorian and Edwardian children’s literature; Rudyard Kipling; Joseph Conrad; Edmund Gosse; British Film 1930-1970.

Research

I am currently editing a book of Victorian and Edwardian ghost stories for Penguin Classics.  In addition, I am completing a book on the history of assassination for Faber and Faber (contract signed 2003).

Curriculum Vitae

I attended schools in Hove and Brighton in East Sussex, England. 
From 1985-92, I was both an undergraduate and postgraduate in the English Department at University College, London.  My PhD, ‘The Child of Nature: The Feral Child and the State of Nature’, was supervised by Professor Philip Horne, and examined by Professor Roy Porter and Professor Tony Tanner. 
From 1994-5, I was a research fellow at Harvard University. 
Here at Leiden, I now teach undergraduate courses English Literature from 1780-1910.  I have taught MA courses on the representation of London, on Gothic fictions and on comedy.

Teaching activities

I have been teaching English Literature and Film, since 1991, working part-time in London at:
- University College, London (1991-3, 1997-2002, including one year full-time).
- Princeton University’s Study Abroad Programme (2001-3, 2004-5).
- Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design (1995-2003).
- Roehampton University (1996-9; 2002-3; 2004-5).
From 2003-4, I  taught in the Department of English Literature at Princeton University.

Publications

PUBLICATIONS UNDER CONTRACT (with submission dates):
Dec 2008         I am editing an anthology of Anglo-American ghost stories published between 1850 and 1914 for Penguin Classics.  
July 2008         I am writing a second book for Faber and Faber exploring the history of assassination and political violence in European and America, 1865-1981.   

PUBLICATIONS IN PRESS (with publication dates):
Winter 2008     I have recently written an essay on ‘Anarchism’ that will appear in a volume on ConradinContext, ed. Allan Simmons (Cambridge University Press).  

RECENT PUBLICATIONS IN PRINT:
August 2007     An edition of Joseph Conrad’s The Secret Agent for Penguin Classics(London: Penguin Books), pp. i-xl, 1-246 (text), 247-269 (appendix/notes).  
March 2007     ‘Four Notes on Aspects of Joseph Conrad’s The Secret Agent’ in The Secret Agent: Centennial Essays, a special issue of The Conradian, ed. Allan H. Simmons and John Stape (Amsterdam: Rodopi B.V.): pp. 129-46. (This article is also published separately in a 2007 issue of The Conradian.)  
January 2007    “’Til I’m Grown: Reading Children’s Films; Reading Walt Disney’s The Jungle Book’ – an essay for a book on children’s films, Turning the Page: Children’s Literature in Performance and the Media, edited by Jeremy Ridgman and Fiona Collins (Bern: Peter Lang): pp. 15-38.  
Sept 2004        An edition of Edmund Gosse’s Father and Son for Oxford University Press World’s Classics series (Oxford: Oxford University Press): pp: i-xlv, 1-186 (text), 187-241 (appendices and notes).   
April 2004        ‘“I See Myself Among the Crowd”: The Poetry of Charlotte Mew’, in Poetry Review, eds. D. Herd and R. Potts (London: Poetry Society): pp. 56-64.  
Dec 2003         An essay on ‘The Puppet’s Becoming: Dolls, Toys and Puppets in Films For Children’ in Children’s Literature and Childhood in Performance, ed. Kimberley Reynolds (London: Pied Piper Publishing): pp. 7-28.  
August 2003     A book on Kind Hearts and Coronets for the BFI Film Classics series (London: BFI Publishing) (87 pages).  
Dec 2002         Science As Polite Culture, a volume in the series, Literature and Science 1660-1834, volume co-edited with Dr Cheryce Kramer and Dr Trea Martyn, series edited by Dr Judith Hawley  (London: Pickering & Chatto).  I was responsible for the choice of texts, the list of further reading, and the endnotes for the extracted texts from Martin to Whewell.  
Feb 2002         A book, Savage Girls and Wild Boys: A History of Feral Children (London: Faber & Faber) (284 pages).  British paperback edition (2003); American hardback edition, St Martin’s Press (2003); paperback edition, Picador USA (2004); German edition, Magnus Verlag (2005); Korean edition, Jung Sim (2003); Latin American edition, Editorial Oceano (2004).  (284 pages)

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Last Modified: 20-10-2009