The BARS Executive
BARS is administered by an Executive Committee whose roles are described in the Association's Constitution. The current executive was elected at the 2022 conference at Edge Hill University and in a special online election in early 2023. Its members will serve two-year terms under ordinary circumstances.
Officers
President: Matthew Sangster (University of Glasgow)
Matt is Professor of Romantic Studies, Fantasy and Cultural History at the University of Glasgow. He was elected as BARS President in 2024. He previously served on the Executive in a number of different roles, joining as postgraduate representive in 2009. His initiatives as Website Editor include the creation of the Blog and the online BARS Review, the 'Five Questions' interview series with academics about recent books and research projects and the continuing development of the site. He was conference chair for the 2021 and 2024 BARS International Conferences.
Vice President: Jennifer Orr (Newcastle University)
Jennifer is Senior Lecturer in Eighteenth Century Literature at Newcastle University. She served as Secretary 2018-2023 before being elected to the role of Vice President of BARS. Her current research is compiling a Digital Humanities project, Transatlantic Networks, which includes a digital edition of correspondence that will eventually comprise a who’s who of early nineteenth century transatlantic intellectual networks. The pilot can be viewed here. In her home institution she is a University Educational Practice Mentor, which informs her interests in developing mentoring and networking opportunities.
Secretary: Andrew McInnes (Edge Hill University)
Andrew McInnes is Reader in Romanticisms at Edge Hill University where he is also Co-Director of EHU Nineteen, Edge Hill’s Research Centre in Nineteenth-Century Studies. Before taking on the role of Secretary, he was lead organiser of New Romanticisms, the joint BARS/NASSR conference 2022. As Secretary, he works with the President and Vice-President on the running of meetings, including the Biennial General Meeting held at BARS conferences, and liaises between the Executive and BARS membership on queries and subvention requests.
Treasurer: Mary Fairclough (York University)
Mary is Professor of Eighteenth-Century and Romantic Period Literature at the University of York, and member of the Centre for Eighteenth Century Studies. She was co-organiser of the BARS Conference in 2017: Romantic Improvement. As Treasurer, she oversees the finances of BARS and works with the Bursaries Officer to coordinate BARS bursaries and awards.
Membership Secretary: Yimon Lo (University of Tübingen/University of Leuven)
Yimon is Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Tübingen and Research Fellow at the University of Leuven. She joined the Executive as Membership Secretary in March 2023, and is responsible for progressing BARS membership applications and managing membership records. She is Reader of the 2023 BARS First Book Prize, and has previously served as Editorial Assistant for The BARS Review.
President: Anthony Mandal (Cardiff University)
After serving as a co-opted member of the Executive since 2013, Anthony Mandal was elected Vice President of BARS in 2015 and President of BARS in 2019. As Vice-President, he sat on the award committee of the second BARS First Book Prize; reviewed applications for the BARS and Marilyn Butler Fellowships at Chawton House Library; arranged the preparation of the BARS postcards; and developed BARS funding awards with the Executive.
Ordinary Members
Editor of The BARS Review: Mark Sandy (Durham University)
Currently Professor in English at Durham, Mark brings his wide experience of Romantic Studies to bear on The BARS Review.
Editor of The BARS Review: Caroline Anjali Ritchie (Oxford University)
Caroline is a postdoctoral fellow at Exeter College, University of Oxford. As Editor of The BARS Review, she commissions reviews of recent books within a broadly conceived field of Romantic studies. Her own special interests include William Blake, maps, globes, zines, and Indian writing in English. .
Communications Officer: Amy Wilcockson (University of Glasgow)
As Communications Officer, Amy edits the BARS Blog and runs the BARS mailbase, alongside overseeing the Associations’ social media presence. Amy is a Research Assistant in Scottish Literature at the University of Glasgow, after recently completing her PhD at the University of Nottingham on the Scottish Romantic poet, Thomas Campbell. She has been Communications Fellow for the Keats-Shelley Association of America (2020-22), and Communications Assistant for BARS (2022-23).
Bursaries Officer: Gerard Lee McKeever (University of Edinburgh)
Gerry is Lecturer in Scottish Literature at the University of Edinburgh. He was elected to the executive in March 2023 and is responsible for BARS bursary schemes including the Stephen Copley Awards. Gerry’s current research projects include a book on regional Romanticism; large-scale studies of library borrowing records; and an edition of John Galt’s autobiographies
Website Officer: Jason Whittaker (University of Lincoln)
Jason is Professor of Communications at the University of Lincoln, alternating between interests in digital communications and William Blake. He is the author of a number of books on Blake, and is a trustee of The Blake Society, as well as Secretary/Director of Digital Strategy for The Global Blake Network.
BARS's 2024-2025 Communications Fellow: Adam Neikirk (Westfield State University)
Adam is Adjunct Lecturer in English and Philosophy at Westfield State University
Early Career Representative: Amanda Blake Davis (University of Derby)
Amanda is a Lecturer at the University of Derby and first joined the BARS Executive in 2019 as a Postgraduate Representative. She has co-organised the 2023 ‘Romantic Boundaries’ and 2020 ‘Romantic Futurities’ ECR & PGR Conferences. She is the BARS contact for the BARS/BAVS Nineteenth-Century Matters Early Career Fellowship.
Early Career Representative: Cleo O'Callaghan Yeoman (University of Stirling)
Cleo O’Callaghan Yeoman is a final-year, AHRC-funded PhD researcher in English Literature at the Universities of Stirling, Glasgow, and Edinburgh. Her thesis analyses the relationships between novel reading and ideas of 'improvement' in Scotland between the years 1800 and 1837. Her broader research interests include intertextuality, Scottish Enlightenment philosophy, and the intersections between the drama and the novel. Cleo has published in The Eighteenth Century: Theory and Interpretation and The Burney Journal. In addition to her role as ECR Representative for BARS, she is also Newsletter Editor for the Romance, Revolution and Reform journal.
Postgraduate Representative: Yu-Hung Tien (University of Edinburgh)
Yu-Hung Tien is a PhD student at the University of Edinburgh, UK. His research interests lie in Romanticism and its transcultural legacies. His current project explores the afterlives of John Keats from a transatlantic perspective, with a particular focus on the poet’s literary survival in Emily Dickinson, Wallace Stevens and F. Scott Fitzgerald. Yu-Hung has recently published an article in the Symbiosis journal. He is also a Communications Fellow for the Keats-Shelley Association of America (K-SAA).
Postgraduate Representative: Kate Nankervis (York University)
Kate is a WRoCAH-funded PhD Researcher at the University of York. Her thesis engages with affect theory to examine clouds in Romantic poetry and landscape painting as a way into exploring the shifting intersubjectivity between human and nonhuman subjects, and the period’s growing ecological consciousness.
Co-Opted Positions
As well as its elected members, the Executive include a number of co-opted specialists who bring particular expertise to the association. The co-opted members are:
Outreach and Impact: Jeff Cowton (Wordsworth Trust)
Jeff is responsible for the Wordsworth Trust Fellowship and for developing liaisons with similar partners.
Education and Schools Liaison: David Fallon (Northumbria University)
David is Senior Lecturer at the Northumbria University, with a focus on long eighteenth-century and Romantic literature. His book Blake, Myth, and Enlightenment: The Politics of Apotheosis was published by Palgrave in 2017 and with Jon Shears he has co-edited a special issue of Romanticism on Romanticism and Ageing. He is currently working on a monograph on literary sociability and London bookseller's shops from 1740 to 1840. He is keen to forge relationships between BARS, exam boards, and schools to promote the teaching and understanding of Romantic-period literature in secondary education.
Non-Academic Officer: Emily Paterson-Morgan
Emily Paterson-Morgan is currently based in Dubai (UAE) where she works as Head of Research Development and Dissemination for Knowledge E, and Director of Operations for the Forum for Open Research in MENA. In addition, as an independent scholar and the Director of The Byron Society, she sits on the Editorial Boards of a leading literature journal and a university press, and organises the annual Newstead Abbey Byron Conference.
International Officer: Francesca Saggini (University of Tuscia)
Francesca Saggini is Professor in English Literature at the Universita' della Tuscia (Italy). Her research areas are long Romanticism, popular literature and the Gothic. Fran's current research projects include a book on Frances Burney and an edited collection on the transmedia representations of crime in the Victorian age.
Research and Innovation Officer: Carmen Casaliggi (Cardiff Metropolitan University)
Carmen is a Reader in English at Cardiff Metropolitan University. Her research interests are in British and European Romanticism, Romantic-period sociability culture, Romanticism’s legacies, and the environmental humanities. She joined the Executive as co-opted Research and Innovation Officer in March 2023.
Book Prize Chair: Simon Kövesi (University of Glasgow)
Simon Kövesi is Professor of English and Scottish Literature at the University of Glasgow, and Head of its School of Critical Studies. He chairs the Committee for the 2023 BARS First Book Prize.