School of English

Martin Scofield

(BA, MPhil, Oxford)

Senior Lecturer  
Email: m.p.scofield@kent.ac.uk  

InterestsMartin Scofield

My current interests focus on the area of ethics in relation to literary criticism -- particularly with reference to the short story, and Shakespeare and Renaissance Drama studies.  The short story as a form clearly has a close connection with older forms like the animal fable, the exemplum and the parable, all of which are obviously related to ethical and moral questions.  In its development as a literary genre, it has preserved many of its older features; and their relation to newer modes ( supernatural, neo-realist, autobiographical, modernist and postmodernist, and the short short story)  is a continuing source of literary tension and productivity.  The recent resurgence of interest in the relation of literature and ethics (in Nussbaum, Williams, Eaglestone, Goldberg and others) has often manifested itself in a focus on the novel.  The shorter form seems a rich and relatively untilled ground for further enquiry and discussion in this area.  In the world of Shakespeare criticism a renewed interest in the ethical and in the 're-humanizing' (as it has been called) of Shakespeare studies  has re-invigorated this area of reflection and research, both in relation to Renaissance ethical modes and those of our own time.

My most recent publications are:
‘Tobias Wolff’. Popular Contemporary Writers, Marshall Cavendish, 2005
‘Implied Stories: Implication, Moral Panic and The Turn of the Screw, Journal of the Short Story in English, No 40, Spring 2003
Lyrical Ballads and Other Poems, (edited with an Introduction, Bibliography and Notes), Wordsworth Classics, 2003
The Ghost Stories of Henry James (edited with an Introduction, Bibliography and Notes), Wordsworth Classics, 2001

‘Winging It: Realism and Invention in the Stories of Tobias Wolff’. The Yearbook of English Studies,  Vol. 31 (North American Short Stories and Short Fictions), 2001

 

 

Teaching

Undergraduate:

Postgraduate:

Recent publications

The Cambridge Introduction to the American Short Story, C.U.P., 2006

‘Tobias Wolff’. Popular Contemporary Writers, Marshall Cavendish, 2005

‘Implied Stories: Implication, Moral Panic and The Turn of the Screw, Journal of the Short Story in English, No 40, Spring 2003

The Ghost Stories of Henry James (edited with an Introduction, Bibliography and Notes), Wordsworth Classics, 2001

‘Winging It: Realism and Invention in the Stories of Tobias Wolff’. The Yearbook of English Studies,  Vol. 31 (North American Short Stories and Short Fictions), 2001

 

School of English, University of Kent, Canterbury, Kent, CT2 7NX

The University of Kent, Canterbury, Kent, CT2 7NZ, T: +44 (0)1227 823054

Last Updated: 12/05/2011