Professor Adam Piette
School of English
Professor of Modern Literature
+44 114 222 8494
Full contact details
School of English
Jessop West
1 Upper Hanover Street
91̽»¨
S3 7RA
- Profile
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I did my undergraduate and postgraduate degrees at the University of Cambridge, with a PhD on prose rhymes and the representation of memory in French and Irish modernist texts.
I taught at the Universities of Paris XIII, Geneva and Lausanne for ten years whilst turning the thesis into an OUP book — Remembering and the Sound of Words (Oxford University Press, 1996) — and publishing a study of Second World War fiction and poetry, Imagination at War (Macmillan, 1995).
I then worked as a lecturer then Reader at the University of Glasgow between 1997 and 2005, where I specialised in 20th century teaching in American and English literature and worked closely with Willy Maley on teaching creative writing at MA level, helping found and run the Edwin Morgan Centre for Creative Writing.
In 2003, I was awarded a Leverhulme Major Research Fellowship funding a book on Cold War writing: The Literary Cold War, 1945 to Vietnam (Edinburgh University Press, 2009). I co-edited The Edinburgh Companion to Twentieth-Century British and American War Literature (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2012) with Mark Rawlinson. More recently, I have published articles on Beckett, Joyce, Nabokov, the war story, Elizabeth Bowen, Muriel Spark, postwar espionage fiction, 20th century poetry.
I also am general editor of the student creative writing magazine, Route 57, and co-edit the poetry journal, Blackbox Manifold.
- Research interests
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I am working on other aspects of Cold War culture, and help run the Cultures of the Cold War network.
I am also currently researching Beckett and am planning a series of articles on Beckett and the French Cold War, Beckett and the maternal, Beckett and reader response. I am also researching espionage fiction, contemporary poetry, the Cold War and the construction of Europe.
- Publications
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Books
- The Edinburgh companion to twentieth-century British and American war literature.
- The Edinburgh companion to twentieth-century British and American war literature.
- Introduction: Genres.
- Introduction: Spaces.
- Introduction: The wars of the twentieth century.
- The literary Cold War, 1945 to Vietnam. Edinburgh University Press.
- Remembering and the Sound of Words: Mallarmé, Proust, Joyce, Beckett: Mallarme, Proust, Joyce, Beckett. Clarendon Press.
- Imagination at war : British fiction and poetry, 1939-1945. Papermac.
Edited books
- The Edinburgh Companion to Twentieth-Century British and American War Literature. Edinbrugh: Edinburgh University Press.
- The 91̽»¨ Anthology: Poems from the City Imagined. 91̽»¨: Smith/Dorrstop.
- Wordwards. Mass Observation.
- The Salt Companion to Peter Robinson. Cambridge: Salt Publishing.
- Modernism and Translation. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Journal articles
- . Modernist Cultures, 16(4), 469-487.
- . Textual Practice, 32(9), 1577-1591.
- . French Studies, 72(3), 463-464.
- . Journal of Medical Humanities, 37(2), 161-169.
- . Translation and Literature, 23(3), 424-427.
- Childhood Wiped Out: Larkin, His Father, and the Bombing of Coventry. English, 62(238), 230-247.
- . European Journal of English Studies, 17(2), 214-216.
- . Translation and Literature, 21(2), 275-282.
- Polaroidy: The revels of Geraldine Monk. Poetry Review, 102(2), 85-88.
- . Textual Practice, 25(2), 281-295.
- Activist Poetics in the Cold War: Grace Paley, Denise Levertov. PN Review, 36(4), 59-63.
- . Theory, Culture & Society, 27(5), 86-106.
- . Translation and Literature, 18(2), 269-275.
- Charlestown Blues: Selected Poems. TRANSLATION AND LITERATURE, 18, 269-275.
- Between Cup and Lip. EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF ENGLISH STUDIES, 13, 241-245.
- Collected Poems. EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF ENGLISH STUDIES, 13(2), 241-245.
- Nigh-No-Place. EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF ENGLISH STUDIES, 13(2), 241-245.
- . Cultural Politics, 4(3), 309-329.
- . Translation and Literature, 17(1), 21-46.
- Hearing Herbert ‘In Deniall’. The Reader, 91-95.
- Recalcitrant Poems: Thomas Hardy’s ‘Hap’. The Reader(24), 62-66.
- Autumnal Emblems and the Singing Voice: Reading Shakespeare’s Sonnet 73. The Reader, 47(44), 44-47.
- . Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 38(2), 258-259.
- The Love of Poetry and Looking Closely in W.S. Graham’s ‘Untidy Dreadful Table’. The Reader(21), 66-70.
- Syntax and Old Style in Basil Bunting’s Seventh Ode. The Reader(21), 64-68.
- Accent and Mouthed Words in Carol Ann Duffy’s ‘Originally’. The Reader(19), 77-81.
- Images and Names in Susan Wicks’s ‘Vocabulary’. The Reader(20), 65-68.
- Mixed Vocal Tone and War History in Auden’s ‘Fleet Visit’’. The Reader(17), 58-62.
- Ballad Scansion in Robert Graves’ ‘Counting the Beats’. The Reader(18), 77-80.
- . Journal of American Studies, 38(3), 503-506.
- Communication, Culture, Community and the Idea of Europe. European English Messenger, 1(13), 18-23.
- Sestinas and Normative Form in Paul Muldoon’s ‘Wire’. The Reader(15), 54-58.
- 'Incarnate Disclosure’ and Lawrence’s ‘First Morning’. The Reader(16), 74-80.
- Allusion and Historical Landscape in Roy Fisher’s ‘Gradbach Hill’. The Reader(14), 52-56.
- . Translation and Literature, 12(1), 1-17.
- Internal Rhyme & Denise Riley’s ‘Song’. The Reader(12), 75-77.
- Pronouns and Place in Bernard Spencer’s ‘In Athens’. The Reader(13), 49-54.
- . Theatre Research International, 27(1), 97-119.
- Death, The War Poet, History's 'Angry Play': Douglas, Keyes, Millard, Gutteridge. Lucknow Journal of English Studies(1), 41-50.
- Rhythm in Ivor Gurney’s ‘On Somme’. The Reader(10), 70-73.
- The Caesura and Kathleen Jamie’s ‘Rooms’. The Reader(11), 53-56.
- Performance, Subjectivity and Slander in Hamlet and Much Ado About Nothing. Early Modern Literary Studies, 2(7), 1-29.
- Justifying Poems: A Reading of Berryman's Dream Song 260. The Reader(8), 59-64.
- Rhyme in Peter Robinson’s ‘Air’. The Reader(9), 41-43.
- Writing the Nation at War: George Orwell, Alan Ross, and Sidney Keyes. Precursors and Aftermaths: Literature in English, 1914-1945, 1(1), 65-75.
- Pat Barker. Post-War Literature in English: A Lexicon of Contemporary Authors(45), 1-24.
- Vladimir Nabokov. Post-War Literature in English: A Lexicon of Contemporary Authors(44), 1-25.
- Beckett's Proustian Critique of Joyce. New Comparison(11), 113-126.
- Harmony, Polyphony, Ornamentation: Musical Rhetoric in Jonson's Hymenaei and Crashaw's 'Musicks Duell'. Angelaki, 2(3), 119-132.
- Against the Politics of History and Story: The Heat of the Day. The Bowen Newsletter, 3, 9-11.
- Eliot's Breakdown and Dr. Vittoz. English Language Notes, 1(33), 35-39.
- Fear of Numbers' : Hazlitt, Wordsworth, Malthus and Overpopulation. Etudes de lettres, 55-68.
- . The Cambridge Quarterly, XXI(2), 174-177.
- 'MAIS, QUAND-MEME MONSIEUR, VOUS EXAGEREZ' + STRICKLAND,G. ON TRANSLATIONS, IMITATIONS AND TRAVESTIES - REPLY. CAMBRIDGE QUARTERLY, 21(2), 174-177.
- IMITATIONS, NEW AIR AND RELISH + TRANSLATIONS OF DRYDEN, DONNE AND RIMBAUD. CAMBRIDGE QUARTERLY, 20(2), 95-117.
- Imitations: New Air and Relish. Cambridge Quarterly, 2(20), 95-117.
- . The Journal of the Sylvia Townsend Warner Society, 21(2).
- . The Journal of the Sylvia Townsend Warner Society, 21(1), 13-30.
- . Complutense Journal of English Studies, 22(0).
Chapters
- (pp. 1099-1115). Informa UK Limited
- 'the summoning urgent thing': The Bull Calves and the Drive to Experiment at Mid-Century’ In Purdon J (Ed.), Naomi Mitchison: A Writer in Time (pp. 122-134). Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
- War and Nuclear Criticism, WAR AND LITERARY STUDIES (pp. 336-351).
- In Brophy J & Davies W (Ed.), Samuel Beckett's Poetry (pp. 189-202). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Midcentury Nonsense and Destructive Mockery In Barton A & Williams J (Ed.), The Edinburgh Companion to Nonsense (pp. 114-128). Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
- Peter Robinson and European Integration In Phillips T (Ed.), Peter Robinson: A Portrait of his Work (pp. 106-123).
- , The Palgrave Handbook of Cold War Literature (pp. 345-365). Springer International Publishing
- The Security State Citizen and the Global Cold War: Beckett, Greene, Kavan, Ballard In Belletto S & Keith J (Ed.), Neocolonial Fictions of the Global Cold War (pp. 187-203). University of Iowa Press
- , British Literature in Transition, 1940–1960: Postwar (pp. 161-175). Cambridge University Press
- The War Story In Delaney P & Hunter A (Ed.), Edinburgh Companion to the Short Story in English (pp. 211-224). Edinburgh University Press
- Poetry, the Early Cold War and the Idea of Europe In Plain G (Ed.), 1940-1960: Postwar (pp. 161-175). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- The War Story In Hunter A & Delaney P (Ed.), Edinburgh Companion to the Short Story in English (pp. 211-224). Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
- In Houen A & Schramm J (Ed.), Sacrifice and Modern War Literature: The Battle of Waterloo to the War on Terror Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- 'my soldiers’: F.T. Prince and the Sweetness of Command In May W (Ed.), Reading F. T. Prince Liverpool: Liverpool University Press.
- Sputniks, Ice-Picks, G.P.U.: Nabokov's Pale Fire In Eckel L & Elliott C (Ed.), The Edinburgh Companion to Atlantic Literary Studies (pp. 357-370). Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
- Deep Geological Disposal and Radioactive Time: Beckett, Bowen, Nirex and Onkalo’ In Beck J & Bishop R (Ed.), Cold War Legacies: Systems, Theory, Aesthetics (pp. 102-115). Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press,.
- 'Now listen, Mr Leer!': Joyce's Lear In Williams J & Bevis M (Ed.), Edward Lear and the Play of Poetry (pp. 281-299). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- Postwar Espionage Fiction: Memory and Fascism in Emergency-State Thinking In Rau P (Ed.), Long Shadows: The Second World War in British Fiction and Film (pp. 177-196). Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern University Press.
- Torture, Text, Human Rights: Beckett’s Comment c’est / How It Is and the Algerian War In Hepburn A (Ed.), Around 1945: Literature, Citizenship, Rights (pp. 151-174). Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press.
- Cold War Morgan In Riach A (Ed.), The International Companion to Edwin Morgan (pp. 87-100). Scottish Literature International
- War and the short story: Elizabeth Bowen, British Women Short Story Writers: The New Woman to Now (pp. 66-80).
- War and the Short Story: Elizabeth Bowen In Young E & Bailey J (Ed.), British Women Short Story Writers: The New Woman to Now (pp. 66-80). Edinburgh University Press
- War Modernism, 1918-1945 In Davis A & Jenkins L (Ed.), A History of Modernist Poetry (pp. 417-433).
- Beckett's ill seen ill said: Reading the subject, subject to reading, The Edinburgh Companion to Samuel Beckett and the Arts (pp. 320-329).
- First World War Poetry In DeMaria R, Chang H & Zacher S (Ed.), Blackwell Companion to British Literature (pp. 195-209). Blackwell: Oxford.
- War and Division in Parade’s End In Chantler A & Hawkes R (Ed.), Ford Madox Ford’s Parade’s End: The First World War, Culture, and Modernity (pp. 141-152). Amsterdam: Rodopi.
- Bernard Spencer's Wars In Robinson P (Ed.), Bernard Spencer: Essays on his Poetry & Life (pp. 88-103). Bristol: Shearsman.
- The Fictions of Nuclear War, from Hiroshima to Vietnam In Piette A & Rawlinson M (Ed.), The Edinburgh Companion to Twentieth-Century British and American War Literature (pp. 160-171). Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
- INTRODUCTION: SPACES, EDINBURGH COMPANION TO TWENTIETH-CENTURY BRITISH AND AMERICAN WAR LITERATURE (pp. 427-430).
- INTRODUCTION: GENRES, EDINBURGH COMPANION TO TWENTIETH-CENTURY BRITISH AND AMERICAN WAR LITERATURE (pp. 475-478).
- Muriel Spark and the Politics of the Contemporary In Gardiner M & Maley W (Ed.), The Edinburgh Companion to Muriel Spark (pp. 52-62). Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
- Beckett's Eve: Ill Seen Ill Said and the Miltonic Attendance Motif In Stirling K & Hennard Dutheil de la Rochère M (Ed.), After Satan: Essays in Honour of Neil Forsyth (pp. 165-180). Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
- Mothers, Mirrors, Doubles: Anne Stevenson’s Elegies for Sylvia Plath In Leighton A (Ed.), Voyages over Voices: Critical Essays on Anne Stevenson (pp. 55-70). Liverpool: Liverpool University Press.
- War Zones In McLoughlin K (Ed.), The Cambridge Companion to War Writing (pp. 38-46). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- War Poetry in Britain In MacKay M (Ed.), The Cambridge Companion to the Literature of the World War II (pp. 13-25). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Keith Douglas and the Poetry of the Second World War’ In Corcoran N (Ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Twentieth-Century English Poetry (pp. 117-130). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Empson, Piaget and the Logic of the Child in Wartime In Bevis M (Ed.), Some Versions of Empson (pp. 42-59). OUP Oxford
- Pointing to East and West: British Cold War Poetry’ In Kendall T (Ed.), The Oxford Handbook of British and Irish War Poetry (pp. 632-652). Oxford University Press
- Left to their own Devices In Robinson P (Ed.), Talk About Poetry: Conversations on the Art (pp. 111-123).
- Reed, Greene and the Freudian Cold War: From The Third Man to the Third World In Kerkinos, Dimitris & Moizaka, Desmoina (Ed.), Carol Reed (pp. 51-55). Thessaloniki: Papyrus.
- Keith Douglas and the Poetry of the Second World War In Corcoran N (Ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Twentieth-Century English Poetry (pp. 117-130). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Breaking Down or Breaking Out?: Pat Barker in conversation with Adam Piette’ In Saunders C & Macnaughton J (Ed.), Madness and Creativity in Literature and Culture (pp. 222-236). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
- World War II: Contested Europe In Marcus L & Nicholls P (Ed.), The Cambridge History of Twentieth-Century English Literature (pp. 417-435).
- 'Roaring between the Lines': W.S. Graham and the White Threshold of Line-Breaks In Pite R & Jones H (Ed.), W.S. Graham: Speaking Towards You (pp. 44-62). Liverpool University Press
- Travel-Writing and the Imperial Subject in 1930s Prose: Waugh, Bowen, Smith, and Orwell In Siegel K (Ed.), Issues in travel writing (pp. 53-65). Peter Lang Pub Inc
- Finnegans Wake and Familial Memory In Senn W (Ed.), Families (pp. 249-256).
- Sound-Repetitions and Sense, or How to Hear Tennyson In Fischer A (Ed.), Repetition (pp. 157-169).
- Beckett, Early Neuropschology and Memory Loss: Beckett's reading of Claparède, Janet and Korsakoff In Buning M (Ed.), Beckett in the 1990s (pp. 41-48). Rodopi
- , The Oxford Handbook of W.B. Yeats (pp. 281-296). Oxford University Press
Book reviews
- . French Studies, 73(3), 479-480.
- . European Journal of English Studies, 18(3), 341-347.
- Translating the Perception of Text: Literary Translation and Phenomenology. TRANSLATION AND LITERATURE, 23(3), 424-427.
- Literary Translation and the Rediscovery of Reading. TRANSLATION AND LITERATURE, 23(3), 424-427.
- Review of open sesame; Dionysus Crucified; The Backlists; Fair’s Fair. EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF ENGLISH STUDIES, 17(2), 214-216.
- Fair's Fair. EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF ENGLISH STUDIES, 17(2), 214-216.
- Impotence and Making in Samuel Beckett's Trilogy 'Molloy, Malone Dies' and 'The Unnamable' and 'How It Is'. FRENCH STUDIES, 67(3), 436-437.
- Say It: The Performative Voice in the Dramatic Works of Samuel Beckett. FRENCH STUDIES, 67(3), 436-437.
- Archives of Authority: Empire, Culture, and the Cold War. LITERATURE & HISTORY-THIRD SERIES, 22(1), 149-151.
- The Poetry of Translation: From Chaucer and Petrarch to Homer and Logue.. TRANSLATION AND LITERATURE, 21, 275-282.
- Poetry and Translation: The Art of the Impossible.. TRANSLATION AND LITERATURE, 21, 275-282.
- . EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF ENGLISH STUDIES, 16(2), 175-180.
- . THEORY CULTURE & SOCIETY, 28(7-8), 390-395.
- . James Joyce Quarterly, 48(4), 782-784.
- . Modernism/modernity, 17(4), 953-955.
- . French Studies, 64(3), 363-364.
- . EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF ENGLISH STUDIES, 14, 191-121.
- . Translation and Literature, 18(1), 130-137.
- Songs of Absence. TRANSLATION AND LITERATURE, 18, 269-275.
- A Smile Between the Stones. TRANSLATION AND LITERATURE, 18, 269-275.
- Proust, Beckett, and Narration. COMPARATIVE CRITICAL STUDIES, 4(2), 305-308.
- . Translation and Literature, 16(1), 119-125.
- Alexander Pushkin: Eugene Onegin. TRANSLATION AND LITERATURE, 16, 119-125.
- 'Horses in boiling blood'.. CHICAGO REVIEW, 53(1), 202-204.
- . Essays in Criticism, 56(4), 400-409.
- . Translation and Literature, 15(1), 136-142.
- . Translation and Literature, 14(1), 122-128.
- ‘If Only English … From Babel to Babylon and Back: A Review. European English Messenger, 1(14), 73-76.
- . Translation and Literature, 13(1), 114-123.
Designs
Website content
- Blackbox Manifold. Retrieved from
- The Sound of Things in Alice Oswald’s Woods.
- Double Wartime and the Second World War.
Scholarly editions
Other
- Research group
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I welcome research students working in any area of modernism, those interested in war studies, particularly the Cold War in literature, and would be happy to supervise projects on Joyce, Beckett, Proust, French-English comparative work, research into 20th century and contemporary poetry, and am willing to work with creative writing students.
- Teaching activities
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I teach on the Modern and Contemporary Literature core modules, approved modules on Cold War Fiction and Film, and Irish Fiction, and help convene the Creative Writing MA programme.