Paraic Finnerty

I am Associate Professor of English and American Literature in the School of Area Studies, Sociology, History, Politics and Literature. In the School, my research and teaching focus on American literature, early modern literature, and representations of masculinities.

I am the author of Emily Dickinson’s Shakespeare (2006), the co-author of Victorian Celebrity Culture and Tennyson's Circle (2013), and the co-editor of six journal special issues, including two on nineteenth-century transatlantic celebrity culture.

Many of my publications explore the nineteenth-century American poet Emily Dickinson's British literary heritage. My most recent work concerns Dickinson's global and transnational connections, her representations of history, and her engagement with celebrity culture.

From 2014-2017, I was Deputy Director of the Centre for Studies in Literature. From 2018-2020, I was Associate Head (Research & Innovation) of the School of Area Studies, History, Politics and Literature. 

I joined the University of Portsmouth as a lecturer in 2004 and was appointed Senior Lecturer in English in 2006 and Reader in 2014.  At Portsmouth, I completed a Postgraduate Certificate in Learning and Teaching in Higher Education in 2005 and became a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. Before joining Portsmouth, I worked as a part-time teacher at the University of Kent for a number of years. I completed my PhD in English at Kent in 2001, having received a BA in English and Philosophy and an MA in Modern English and American Literature from University College Dublin.

I specialise in American literature and transatlantic literary studies. I am currently completing my second monograph, Dickinson and her British Contemporaries, which examines connections between Dickinson’s writings and the poetry of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Robert Browning, Alfred Tennyson, the Brontës, and George Eliot. In 2012, I was awarded an AHRC Early Career Fellowship to facilitate the completion of this project.

I am also working on new research on nineteenth-century and contemporary celebrity culture as a member of the Celebrity, Citizenship, and Status project.

PhD Research Supervision:

I especially welcome enquiries and applications from students wishing to study a PhD with me in American literature, nineteenth-century poetry, or cultural representations of masculinity. 

I am happy to take calls and emails from media on my research, and am aware of the need to respond to journalists in a timely manner. These should be directed to me, [email protected] - 023 9284 6176

Interested journalists can also contact the University's Media and Communications team for support and advice on all media engagement, including out of hours.

I teach a number of modules at undergraduate and postgraduate level. 

At undergraduate level, I coordinate and teach a final year module, US Masculinities; two second-year modules Puritans to Postmodenists, Bloody Shaskespeare; and one final year module, Body Politics. I also teach on a second year module Women's Writing in the Americas and a first year module Unpacking Texts. These are core or optional modules on the BA in English Literature and the BA in English and Creative Writing.

At Postgraduate level, I teach on a module entitled Theory, Skills and Approaches on the MA in Victorian Gothic: History, Literature and Culture.

I also supervise students tasking the Humanities and Social Science MRes programme and PhD research.