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Reader (English Literature)

Telephone : +44 (0)20 8392 3223
Email : M.Knight@roehampton.ac.uk
Department : English and Creative Writing
Office location : Fincham 208

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About

I came to Roehampton after studying English Literature, History and Theology at the University of Hull and King’s College London. Interdisciplinary concerns remain at the centre of my work, and my research has two main threads religion and literature, and Victorian literature. I also have research interests in G. K. Chesterton, sensation fiction, and hermeneutics.

At present I am working on two books: a monograph provisionally entitled Good Words: Evangelicalism and the Nineteeenth-Century Novel and a book with Emma Mason called Faithful Reading: Poetry and Christian Practice. I am also co-organizing The Hospitable Text: New Approaches to Religion and Literature, a conference being held at the Notre Dame Centre in London (July 2011); co-editing a book series ("New Directions in Religion and Literature") with Emma Mason for Continuum; and writing an article on "Religion and Education" for the forthcoming Oxford Handbook of Victorian Literary Culture.

I would be delighted to hear from anyone interested in coming to study with me at Roehampton.

Research Projects Undertaken

PhD Students:

  1. Julia Jones. Family Fictions: The Working Life of Herbert Allingham, 1867-1936. Awarded 2006.
  2. Louise Lee. Charles Kingsley and the Politics of Authorship. Awarded 2009.
  3. Loni Reynolds. Spirituality and the Beats. 2007.
  4. Maria Soultouki. Geoffrey Hartman and the Challenge of Reading Postmodern Literature.2008.
  5. Lyn Poole. Postmodern ideas of the eschaton in the fiction of J. G. Ballard, Alasdair Gray and Douglas Coupland. 2008.
  6. John Martin. Music and Mission in the Salvation Army. 2008.
  7. Michael Zand. The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam: a Contemporary Reinterpretation. 2009.

Publications

"Religion and Sensation." In The Blackwell Companion to Sensation Fiction. Ed. Pamela Gilbert. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, forthcoming 2011.
"Wirkungsgeschichte, Reception History, Reception Theory." Special Issue of Journal for the Study of the New Testament 33.2 (December 2010): 137-146.
"Saving Literary Criticism." (Co-authored with Emma
Mason). In Knight & Lee, Religion, Literature and the Imagination.
"Signs Taken for Wonders: Adverts and Sacraments in Chesterton's London." Yearbook of English Studies 39.1-2 (2009): 126-36.
"Sensation Fiction and the Bible." In The Blackwell Companion to the Bible in English Literature. Eds. Rebecca Lemon, Emma Mason, Jon Roberts & Chris Rowland. Oxford: Blackwell, 2009.
"Figuring out the Fascination: Recent Trends in Criticism on Victorian Sensation and Crime Fiction." Victorian Literature and Culture 37.1 (2009): 323-333.
"'The Haunted the Haunters': Bulwer Lytton's Philosophical Ghost Story." Nineteenth-Century Contexts 28.3 (September 2006): 245-55.
"A Purely Pure Prayer would be Deadly: Religious Discourse in the Early Novels of All the Year Round." In Knight and Woodman, eds. Biblical Religion and the Novel.
“Little Dorrit and Providence.” Dickens Studies Annual Vol. 32. (2002): 179-193.
“Rethinking Bibliolatry: Wilkie Collins, William Booth, and the Culture of Evangelicalism.” Wilkie Collins Society Journal New Series Vol. 3 (2000): 47-58.
“Chesterton, Dostoevsky and Freedom.” English Literature in Transition Vol. 43.1 (2000): 37-50.
“Chesterton and the Problem of Evil.” Literature and Theology Vol. 14.4 (2000): 373-384.
“Chesterton and the Cross.” Christianity and Literature Vol. 49.4 (2000): 485-497.
An Introduction to Religion and Literature. London: Continuum, 2009.
Nineteenth-Century Religion and Literature: An Introduction. Co-authored with Emma Mason. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006.
Chesterton and Evil. New York: Fordham University Press, 2004.
Religion, Literature and the Imagination. Co-edited with Louise Lee. London: Continuum, 2009.
Biblical Religion and the Novel, 1700-2000. Co-edited with Thomas Woodman. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006.
Edition of Mary Cecil Hay’s Old Myddelton’s Money. Vol 5 of Varieties of Women’s Sensation Fiction. Gen ed.Andrew Maunder. London: Pickering & Chatto, 2004.
Book Reviews I have written reviews for Christianity and Literature, English Literature in Transition, Journal of Victorian Culture, Literature and Theology, Media History, Modern Language ReviewVictorian Studies, Wilkie Collins Society Journal, Women's Writing, and Yearbook of English Studies.
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