Our staff

EMERITUS STAFF 

• Isobel Armstrong, Fellow of the College: Isobel Armstrong is a Fellow of the British Academy, Senior Research Fellow of the Institute of English Studies and Professor Emeritus of what is now the Geoffrey Tillotson Chair. During her time at Birkbeck, she founded the London Seminar for Nineteenth-Century Studies and the Centre for Nineteenth-Century Studies. During retirement she has taught at the universities of Harvard and Johns Hopkins and spoken at international conferences. She is also a published poet. Visit Isobel Armstrong's fellows page.
• Laurel Brake, Professor Emerita of English Literature and Print Culture: Visit Laurel Brake's fellows page or email Laurel Brake.
• Sandra Clark: After retiring from Birkbeck in 2006, Sandra Clark became Acting, Deputy Director and then Director of the Institute of English Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London until 2012. Her special interest is in Shakespeare and early modern drama and popular literature. She is the author of six books and numerous articles and chapters in books and is also the Series Editor of the Arden Shakespeare Dictionaries.
• Alison Finlay, Honorary Life Member of the College: Alison's research interests are primarily in Old Icelandic. She has worked on the Icelandic poets’ sagas and other sagas of Icelanders, and is currently engaged on a translation of the historical text Heimskringla, in collaboration with Anthony Faulkes. Alison is also involved in re-editing the corpus of Old Norse skaldic poetry, and is editing verses for Volume 1 of Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages. She is currently editing, with Martin Arnold, a collection of articles on the fornaldarsögur. She is also writing a book provisionally called Skalds and Sagas, about the characterisation and function of poets in the Norse-Icelandic Kings’ sagas and the sagas of Icelanders.
• Hilary Fraser: Hilary Fraser came to Birkbeck in 2002 to take up the Geoffrey Tillotson Chair of Nineteenth-Century Studies. As Director of the Centre for Nineteenth-Century Studies, Hilary was the founding editor of its online journal, 19: Interdisciplinary Studies in the Long Nineteenth Century. She is a published author and has written monographs on the Victorians and Renaissance Italy, aesthetics and religion in Victorian writing, nineteenth-century non-fiction prose, and gender and the Victorian periodical. She has been President of the British Association for Victorian Studies since 2015. Email Hilary Fraser.
• Tom Healy
• Russell Celyn Jones: Russell Celyn Jones set up the MA Creative Writing course at Birkbeck in 2003 and was its director for 12 years. His short fiction has been anthologised around the world and Soldiers and Innocents was serialised on BBC Radio 4. He has been a freelance feature writer for the Observer, Guardian, Independent, Time Out and Sunday Times, and a book reviewer for The Times for 15 years. Prizes he has judged include the Man Booker Prize, The Royal Society of Literature Ondaatji Prize and the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize. He also chaired the annual Man Booker event at Birkbeck.
• Peter Mudford
• Mpalive-Hangson Msiska, Reader in English and Humanities: Mpalive has previously studied in Malawi, Canada, Germany and Scotland and has taught at the Universities of Malawi, Stirling and Bath Spa. External responsibilities include being examiner or joint-supervisor of PhD theses, BA and MA Programmes at other Universities in Britain and abroad. He is a member of the Wole Soyinka Society, The Royal African Society and the Association of the African Studies in the UK (ASAUK) and a Board Member of The Canon Collins Trust, dedicated to sourcing scholarships to enable qualified students from Southern Africa undertake higher education either in Africa or the United Kingdom.
• Michael Slater, Fellow of the College: Michael Slater is one of the most highly regarded scholars of nineteenth-century literature. From 1958 to 1977 he edited The Dickensian and he served as president both of the International Dickens Fellowship and of the Dickens Society of America. He has always been actively involved in the affairs of Dickens House Museum. Michael worked and taught continuously at Birkbeck for 36 years and has taught and lectured in the US, across Europe, Australasia and the Far East.
• Colin Teevan: Professor of Playwriting and Screenwriting, Colin teaches writing for stage screen and radio at undergraduate and postgraduate levels. Colin's stagework has been performed all over the world. He is a long term collaborator with many of the world’s foremost theatre practitioners including Kathryn Hunter, Sir Peter Hall, Hideki Noda, Walter Meirjohann and Dalia Ibelhauptaite. Colin has written more than ten full-length plays for BBC Radios 3 and 4 including the award-winning Glass Houses (2007). 

RESEARCH FELLOWS AND VISITING PROFESSORS

• Professor Daniel Brown, Visiting Professor
• Dr Laura Cushing-Harries, Associate Research Fellowship
• Dr Tom Dillon, Associate Research Fellowship
• Dr Dickon Edwards, Associate Research Fellowship
  
• Dr David Gillott, Honorary Research Fellowship
• Dr Tobias Harris, Associate Research Fellowship
• Dr Hallvard Haug, Associate Research Fellowship
• Dr Paul Ingram, Associate Research Fellowship
• Dr Robyn Jakeman, Associate Research Fellowship
• Professor Kyoung Hee Joung, Honorary Research Fellowship
  
• Professor Douglas Kerr, Honorary Research Fellowship
• Dr Janette Leaf, Associate Research Fellowship
  
• Professor Michael Lewis, Honorary Research Fellowship
• Dr James Machin, Honorary Research Fellowship
• Dr Sean O'Brien, Honorary Research Fellowship
• Professor Zoe Playdon, Honorary Research Fellowship
• Professor Michael Robertson, Honorary Research Fellowship
• Dr Henghameh Saroukhani, Honorary Research Fellowship
• Dr Steven Spencer, Honorary Research Fellowship
• Dr Robert Stearn, Associate Research Fellowship
  
• Dr Michael Warren, Honorary Research Fellowship