Prof Christopher McCully

Biography

Chris worked full-time at the University of Manchester until 2003, where he specialised in teaching and research relating to the history and structure of the English language. At the same time, he ran consecutive series of poetry readings and talks at what was then the Manchester Poetry Centre. Between 2003-13 he worked in the Netherlands, dividing his time between freelance writing and university work, including the inception of the Graduate School for the Humanities at the Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, where Chris was Managing Director. In 2013 he came to live and work in Essex, where he combines university work with freelance writing. Chris has written, co-authored or edited over twenty books. His most recent single-author collection of verse is Serengeti Songs (Carcanet, 2016); a new translation of Beowulf together with an extended prose Afterword appeared from Carcanet in 2018. A book of travel essays, Four Places, appeared from the Muscaliet Press, 2018. In 2018 Chris also completed a further book-length typescript, Stour Diaries, about the angling, ecology and culture of the Stour valley; this title is expected to appear from the Medlar Press in 2019 or 2020. At present he is working on a set of analyses of English poetic form (The Fretted Muse); he has also completed a new collection of poems (working title The English Funerals). Many of these publications are destined for Carcanet Press, with whom Chris retains strong links. Chris is also, if slowly, preparing a new collection of poems (working title A Few Late Wasps) which will open a volume of Collected Poems, expected from Carcanet probably in 2022 or 2023. Other work underway in 2019 includes two further books, Names of the Fish (in British and Irish Freshwaters) - a work of lexicography - and what will probably be the last of Chris's angling and environmental books, The River of All the Goodbyes. This last title focusses on the ecology of the River Wharfe, in Chris's native Yorkshire. Both these titles will be sent up to The Medlar Press, with whom, like Carcanet, Chris retains strong links. He is also an Honorary Senior Research Fellow of the Faculty of Arts, University of Manchester. Until 2017 he was the founder and co-director of the Modern Literary Archives Programme at the John Rylands University Library and the instigator (and one of the convenors) of the annual Rylands Reading Over the past thirty years Chris has contributed many articles, essays, reviews and research papers to academic journals spanning linguistics, philology, stylistics and literature. Chris's most recent academic essays, which have appeared in PNReview, are on Joseph Conrad ('Conrad, culture, civilisation') and on closure and English metrics ('Counting, closure and prosody', 2017). Chris continues to supervise research (PhD) candidates. He is particularly interested to work with researchers who wish to specialise in the origins and development of poetic forms in English. Personal website: www.chrismccully.co.uk

Qualifications

• BA (Hons) University of Newcastle upon Tyne,

• PhD University of Manchester,

Appointments

University of Essex

• Professor, Literature, Film and Theatre Studies, University of Essex (1/10/2019 - present)

• Senior Lecturer, Literature, Film and Theatre Studies, University of Essex (1/10/2017 - 30/9/2019)

Other academic

• Lecturer, Engels, University of Groningen (1/8/2007 - 30/8/2013)

• Lecturer (0.4fte), Engels, VU University Amsterdam (1/10/2003 - 1/7/2007)

• Senior Lecturer, English and American Studies, University of Manchester (1/1/1994 - 30/9/2003)

• Lecturer, English and American Studies, University of Manchester (1/10/1985 - 31/12/1993)

• Visiting professor, English, University of California Los Angeles (1/9/1995 - 31/12/1995)