The Scottish Executive

Scottish Executive

PROFESSOR NIGEL JAMES LEASK APPOINTED TO THE REGIUS CHAIR OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE

HM The Q ueen has appointed Professor Nigel James Leask to the Regius Chair of English Language and Literature in the University of Glasgow.

Prior to his appointment to this post, Professor Leask (47) was University Lecturer in the Faculty of English and Fellow and Director of Studies in Queens’ College, University of Cambridge. He received his First Class B.A. Honours (English Language and Literature) as an undergraduate at the University of Cambridge in 1980 and was awarded his Ph.D. in 1988, also at the University of Cambridge.

Professor Leask is a leading scholar of British Romanticism, and his publications have included three monographs which have achieved international recognition: The Politics of Imagination in Coleridge’s Critical Thought (1988); British Romantic Writers and the East: Anxieties of Empire (1992); and Curiosity and the Aesthetics of Travel Writing 1770-1840: From an Antique Land (2002). His 1992 monograph has since become a widely-used textbook in British and US English departments. Professor Leask’s research has consistently sought to rethink the meaning of canonical and non-canonical Romantic writing in relation to its social, political and geographical contexts. His recent research has moved in the direction of 18th-19th century Scottish literature and Anglo-Scottish literary relations.

Professor Leask is a member of the Editorial Collective of History Workshop Journal. He is a member of BARS (British Association for Romantic Studies), NASSR (North American Society for the Study of Romanticism) and ASECS (American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies).