Emeritus Professor Will Christie
Areas of expertise
- British And Irish Literature 200503
- Other Literatures In English 200508
- Comparative Literature Studies 200524
- Literary Theory 200525
- Cultural Theory 200204
- Australian Literature (Excl. Aboriginal And Torres Strait Islander Literature) 200502
- British History 210305
- Biography 210304
- European History (Excl. British, Classical Greek And Roman) 210307
- History And Philosophy Of Specific Fields 2202
Research interests
- British Romantic literature and culture
- Public lecturing during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries
- Modern Scottish intellectual and cultural history
- The culture of science in Romantic Britain
- The Edinburgh Review 1802-1829 and its ediitor, Francis Jeffrey
- Cultural relations between Britain and China in the Qing dynasty
- Poetry and poetics
- Literary influence
- Shakespeare in critical and cultural history
- William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge
- Jane Austen
- Dylan Thomas
Biography
A graduate of the universities of Sydney and Oxford, Emeritus Professor Will Christie was Head of the Humanities Research Centre at the ANU from 2015 to 2021. Professor Christie was founding President of the Romantic Studies Association of Australasia (RSAA) from 2010 to 2015 and his scholarly work in Romantic studies has been widely published in English Literary History, Romanticism, Studies in Romanticism, European Romantic Review, and other journals specialising in Romantic literature. His monograph, Samuel Taylor Coleridge: A Literary Life (2006), was awarded the NSW Premier’s Biennial Prize for Literary Scholarship in 2008 and his other publications include The Letters of Francis Jeffrey to Thomas and Jane Welsh Carlyle (2008),The Edinburgh Review in the Literary Culture of Romantic Britain: Mammoth and Megalonyx (2009), Dylan Thomas: A Literary Life (2014), and The Two Romanticisms, and Other Essays (2016). With the aid of Discovery Project grants from the Australian Research Council, he is currently researching (1) a critical biography of the Scottish critic, politician, and judge, Francis Jeffrey, editor of the early nineteenth-centuryEdinburgh Review; (2) a major study of public lecturing in the Romantic period; and, most recently, (3) ‘The Emotional Register of Liberal Culture in the Long Nineteenth Century’, along with A/Prof. Jock Macleod and Dr Peter Denney, with whom he has edited a volume of critical essays, Politics and Emotions in Romantic Periodicals (2020).
Professor Christie is also Director of the Australasian Consortium of Humanities Research Centres (ACHRC), co-ordinator of the Romanticism Section of the International Association of University Professors of English (IAUPE), on the International Advisory Board of the journal European Romantic Review, and general editor of the series China and the West in the Modern World for Sydney University Press. He was elected a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities in 2011.
For many years president of the Dylan Thomas Society of Australia and an active member of a number of literary societies, Professor Christie is also the author of Under Mulga Wood (2004), an award-winning 'play for voices' that has enjoyed performances around Australia and been broadcast and recorded by the ABC.
Researcher's projects
- Liberal culture in the long 19th century
- The Edinburgh Review under Francis Jeffrey: A website
- Cultural relations between Britain and China in the Qing dynasty
- An Open University: Public lecturing in the Romantic period
- The Periodical Enlightenment of the early 19th century
- Better Strangers: Complexity and creativity in the teaching of Shakespeare
- The life and correspondence of Francis Jeffrey
- 'Eating Their Words': a study of literary influence
- A critical study of the writings of Dylan Thomas
- The novels of Jane Austen
Publications
- Christie, W 2016, The Two Romanticisms, and Other Essays : Mystery and Interpretation in Romantic Literature, Sydney University Press, Sydney.
- Christie, W 2014, Dylan Thomas: A Literary Life, Palgrave Macmillan Ltd, Basingstoke and New York.
- Christie, W 2009, The Edinburgh Review in the Literary Culture of Romantic Britain: Mammoth and Megalonyx (The Enlightenment World), Pickering & Chatto Publishers ltd, United Kingdom.
- Christie, W, ed., 2008, The Letters of Francis Jeffrey to Thomas and Jane Welsh Carlyle, Pickering & Chatto Publishers ltd, United Kingdom.
- Christie, W 2006, Samuel Taylor Coleridge: A Literary Life, Palgrave Macmillan Ltd, United Kingdom.
- Christie, W 2004, Under Mulga Wood: A Play for Australian Voices. Mumford and More, Australia.
- Christie, W 2021, '"The Essential Cambridge in spite of Cambridge": F. R. Leavis in the Antipodes', Australian Humanities Review, no. 68, pp. 1-15.
- Christie, W 2020, 'Introduction: China and the West in the Long Eighteenth Century', in William Christie, Angela Dunstan and Q S Tong (ed.), Tribute and Trade: China and Global Modernity, 1784-1935, Sydney University Press, Australia, pp. 1-21.
- Christie, W 2020, 'Cultural Cross-Dressing in the House of Pankeequa', in William Christie, Angela Dunstan and Q S Tong (ed.), Tribute and Trade: China and Global Modernity, 1784-1935, Sydney University Press, Australia, pp. 53-77.
- Christie, W 2020, 'Contemporary Critical Reception to 1824', in Clara Tuite (ed.), Byron in Context, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom, pp. 257-264.
- Macleod, J, Christie, W & Denney, P 2019, 'Politics, Emotions, and Romantic Periodicals', in J Macleod, W Christie & P Denney (ed.), Politics and Emotions in Romantic Periodicals, Palgrave Macmillan, Switzerland, pp. 1-25.
- Christie, W 2019, '‘Where Personation Ends and Imposture Begins’: John Wilson, Noctes Ambrosianæ, and the Tory Populism of Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine', in J Macleod, W Christie, P Denney (ed.), Politics and Emotions in Romantic Periodicals, Springer Nature Switzerland AG, Switzerland, pp. 175-194.
- Christie, W 2019, 'John Keats in Context', The Review of English Studies, vol. 70, no. 293, pp. 181-185.
- Christie, W 2019, 'Literature, History, Value: The Case of British Romanticism', Humanities Australia, vol. 10, pp. 29-39.
- Christie, W 2019, 'The Poetry Revolution: Dylan Thomas and His Circle', in Geraint Evans and Helen Fulton (ed.), The Cambridge History of Welsh Literature, Cambridge University Press, United Kingdom, pp. 468-487.
- Christie, W 2018, 'Critical Judgement and the Reviewing Profession', in David Duff (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of British Romanticism, Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp. 279-293.
- Christie, W 2018, 'British Romanticism: Gnostic Longings', in Garry W. Trompf, Gunner B. Mikkelsen, Jay Johnston (ed.), The Gnostic World, Routledge, London, pp. 454-463.
- Christie, W 2016, 'China in Early Romantic Periodicals', European Romantic Review, vol. 27, no. 1, pp. 25-38.
- Christie, W 2015, 'Scottish Periodical Enlightenment', Journal of the Sydney Society for Scottish History, vol. 15, no. May 2015, pp. 83-95.
- Christie, W 2015, 'Public Lectures on Literature and the Birth of "English"', in Li Cao and Li Jin (ed.), New Pilgrimages: Selected Papers from the IAUPE Beijing Conference in 2013, Tsinghua University Press, Beijing, pp. 147-164.
- Christie, W 2015, ''These our actors': Histrionics in Shakespeare's King Richard III and Al Pacino's Looking for Richard', Sydney Studies in English, vol. 41, pp. 1-16.
- Christie, W 2015, 'Review Article: Forging Romantic China: Sino-British Cultural Exchange 1760-1840 by Peter Kitson', European Romantic Review, vol. 26, no. 1, pp. 75-83.
- Christie, W 2013, 'The Modern Athenians: The Edinburgh Review in the Knowledge Economy of the Early Nineteenth Century', Studies in Scottish Literature, vol. 39, no. 1, pp. 115-138.
- Christie, W 2013, 'Res Theatralis Histrionica: Acting Coleridge in the Lecture Theater', Studies in Romanticism, vol. 52, no. 4, pp. 485-509.
- Christie, W 2013, 'Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine in the Scientific Culture of Early Nineteenth-Century Edinburgh', in Robert Morrison, Daniel S Roberts (ed.), Romanticism and Blackwood's Magazine: An Unprecedented Phenomenon, Palgrave Macmillan Ltd, United Kingdom, pp. 125-136.
- Christie, W 2013, '"Prejudice against prejudices": China and the Limits of Whig Liberalism', European Romantic Review, vol. 24, no. 5, pp. 509-529.
- Christie, W 2013, ''To barbicue a poet or two or strangle a metaphysician': the founding of Francis Jeffrey's Edinburgh Review', University of Edinburgh Journal, vol. 46, no. 2, pp. 73-77.
- Christie, W 2013, 'Sydney Smith and the Edinburgh Review', The Sydney Smith Association Newsletter, Vol. 18, pp. 9-16.
- Christie, W 2012, ''An act hath three branches': Being and Acting in Hamlet', Sydney Studies in English, vol. 38, pp. 1-18.
- Christie, W 2012, '"Full as a lovebird's egg": Women, Sexuality, and Relationships in Under Milk Wood'. In The Sydney Theatre Company: Under Milk Wood.
- Christie, W 2012, 'Expiflication and Squabash: Blackwood's and the Brontes', The Bronte Thunderer: Journal of the Australian Bronte Association, vol. 9, pp. 27-39.
- Christie, W 2010, 'On Poetry', Metaphor, vol. 8, pp. 30-37.
- Christie, W 2010, 'The Dialogue of the Mind with Itself: Questing and Questioning in Romantic Poetry', English Association Teachers' Conference 2010, ed. R Madelaine, English Association, Australia, pp. 91-105.
- Christie, W 2010, 'The Romantic Imagination', The Bulletin of the Byron Society of Australia, Vol. 34, pp. 1-18.
- Christie, W 2009, 'Coleridge, Austen, and the Two Romanticisms', English Association Teachers' Conference 2009, ed. R Madelaine, English Association, Australia, pp. 79-95.
- Christie, W 2009, 'In dialogue with the living and the dead: Ted Hughes's Birthday Letters', Sydney Studies in English, vol. 35, pp. 55-72.
- Christie, W 2009, ''Wars of the tongue' in post-war Edinburgh: on Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine and its campaign against the Edinburgh Review', Romanticism, vol. 15, no. 2, pp. 95-108.
- Christie, W 2009, 'Francis Jeffrey in recent Whig interpretations of Romantic literary history', ELH - English Literary History, vol. 76, no. 3, pp. 577-597.
- Christie, W 2009, 'Don Juan', The Bulletin of the Byron Society of Australia, Vol. 33, pp. 3-25.
- Christie, W 2008, 'Samuel Taylor Coleridge: Timeline', in Robert Clark (ed.), The Literary Encyclopedia, Literary Dictionary Company Ltd, http://www.litencyc.com/index.php.
- Christie, W 2008, 'Dylan Thomas, Under Milk Wood', in Robert Clark (ed.), The Literary Encyclopedia, Literary Dictionary Company Ltd, http://www.litencyc.com/index.php.
- Christie, W 2008, 'Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Frost at Midnight', in Robert Clark (ed.), The Literary Encyclopedia, Literary Dictionary Company Ltd, http://www.litencyc.com/index.php, pp. 1pp.
- Christie, W 2008, 'Jane Austen and the John Murray Archive', Sensibilities, vol. 36, pp. 5-19.
- Christie, W 2008, 'Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner', in Robert Clark (ed.), The Literary Encyclopedia, Literary Dictionary Company Ltd, http://www.litencyc.com/index.php, pp. 1pp.
- Christie, W 2008, 'First Impressions; or, the Portrait: Art and Architecture in Pride and Prejudice', English Association Teachers' Conference 2008, ed. R Madelaine, English Association, Sydney Australia, pp. 61-73.
- Christie, W 2008, 'The Edinburgh Review', in Robert Clark (ed.), The Literary Encyclopedia, Literary Dictionary Company Ltd, http://www.litencyc.com/index.php.
- Christie, W 2008, 'Trifling Deviation: Stage and Screen Versions of Mary Shelley's Monster', in Penny Gay, Judith Johnston and Catherine Waters (ed.), Victorian Turns, NeoVictorian Returns: Essays on Fiction and Culture, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, United Kingdom, pp. 158-170.
- Christie, W 2008, 'Such is modern fame: The Byronic Hero', The Bulletin of the Byron Society of Australia, Vol. 32, pp. 15-30.
- Christie, W, Stretton, A, Fullerton, S et al 2007, 'Critics Forum', Sensibilities, vol. 35, pp. 78-96.
- Christie, W 2007, 'Superflux and Silence in Shakespeare's King Lear', Sydney Studies in English, vol. 33, pp. 1-19.
- Christie, W 2007, 'Rex Paulson' (monologue), The Australian Script Centre.
- Christie, W 2007, 'The Story of Samuel Rogers and His Poetry', The Bulletin of the Byron Society of Australia, Vol. 31, pp. 7-26.
- Christie, W 2006, Under Mulga Wood: A Dramatization. Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
- Christie, W 2005, 'Essays, Newspapers, and Magazines', in Nicholas Roe (ed.), Romanticism: An Oxford Guide, Oxford University Press, United Kingdom, pp. 426-444.
- Christie, W 2005, 'Coleridge and Wordsworth in Pandaemonium', Sydney Studies in English, vol. 31, pp. 109-120.
- Christie, W 2005, 'HIMSELF, ALONE: Coleridge in Isolation', Metaphor, vol. 3, pp. 15-25.
- Christie, W 2004, 'Lyric', in Christopher John Murray (ed.), Encyclopedia of the Romantic Era, 1760-1850, Taylor & Francis, New York and London, pp. 700-701pp.
- Christie, W 2004, 'Progress', in Christopher John Murray (ed.), Encyclopedia of the Romantic Era, 1760-1850, Taylor & Francis, New York and London, pp. 911-912pp.
- Christie, W 2004, 'British Romanticism: Approaches and Interpretations', in Christopher John Murray (ed.), Encyclopedia of the Romantic Era, 1760-1850, Taylor & Francis, New York and London, pp. 116-119pp.
- Christie, W 2004, 'Hero', in Christopher John Murray (ed.), Encyclopedia of the Romantic Era, 1760-1850, Taylor & Francis, New York and London, pp. 497-498pp.
- Christie, W 2002, 'Fair seed-time had my soul: The Romantics at School', Sensibilities, vol. 25, pp. 94-114.
- Christie, W 2002, 'State Patronage and the Romantic Writer: Henry Taylor's Modest Proposal', in E.J. Clery, Caroline Franklin and Peter Garside (ed.), Authorship, Commerce and the Public Scenes of Writing 1750-1850, Palgrave Macmillan Ltd, United Kingdom, pp. 218-236.
- Christie, W 2002, 'Determined Haters: Byron and Henry Brougham', The Bulletin of the Byron Society of Australia, Vol. 26, pp. 25-29.
- Christie, W 2001, 'A note on Jane Austen', in Susannah Fullerton and Anne Harbers (ed.), Jane Austen: Antipodean views, Wellington Lane Press, Australia, pp. 104-105.
- Christie, W 2001, 'To Advantage Drest: Poetics and Cosmetics in The Rape of the Lock', in Geoffrey Little (ed.), Imperfect Apprehensions: Essays in English Literature in Honour of G.A. Wilkes, Challis Press, Australia, pp. 133-147.
- Christie, W 2000, 'A Recent History of Poetic Difficulty', ELH - English Literary History, vol. 67, pp. 539-564.
- Christie, W 1999, 'Whaur's Yer Wullie Shakespeare Noo?: Literary Influence V. Arts', The Journal of the Sydney University Arts Association, vol. 21, pp. 65-92.
- Christie, W 1999, 'The Critical Metamorphoses of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein', Sydney Studies in English, vol. 25, no. 1999, pp. 47-82.
- Christie, W 1999, 'In Loco Parentis: Who's Looking after the Children?', Sensibilities, vol. XVIII, no. June 1999, pp. 1-20.
- Christie, W 1999, 'Going Public: Print Lords Byron and Brougham', Studies in Romanticism, vol. 38, no. 3, pp. 443-475.
- Christie, W 1999, 'Henry Brougham (p. 433); Thomas Campbell (p. 442); Circulating Libraries (pp. 453-454); Joseph Cottle (p. 468); Thomas De Quincey (pp. 482-483); Dissenting Academies (pp.485-6); Epic (p. 499); Essay (p. 500); Charles James Fox (p. 512); Freedom of the Press'; Holland House (pp. 545-546); Lord Holland (p. 546); Francis Jeffrey (pp. 562-563); Charles Lamb (pp. 574-575); Mary Lamb (p. 575); Liberal (p. 583); John Gibson Lockhart (p. 586); Lyric (p. 589); Newspapers (pp. 622-623); Thomas Love Peacock (pp. 640-641); Reform Act 1832 (p. 671); Reviewing (pp. 674-675); Samuel Rogers (pp. 680-1); Romantic Irony (p. 682); Sydney Smith (p. 709); John Wilson (p. 765), in McCalman (ed.), An Oxford Companion to The Romantic Age British Culture 1776-1832, British Academy and Oxford University Press, Oxford, United Kingdom.
- Christie, W 1998, 'La Bible du self-made man: Literary Influence IV. Arts', The Journal of the Sydney University Arts Association, vol. 20, pp. 77-105.
- Christie, W 1997, 'Pride, Politics, and Prejudice', Nineteenth-Century Contexts: An Interdisciplinary Journal, vol. 20, no. 3, pp. 313-334.
- Christie, W 1997, 'Byron and Francis Jeffrey', The Byron Journal, vol. 25, pp. 32-43.
- Christie, W 1997, 'Intimations of Immortality in Swift and Keats: A Note', The Review of English Studies, vol. 48, no. 192, pp. 501-503.
- Christie, W 1997, 'Meaning and the Mock-Heroic: Literary Influence III. Arts', The Journal of the Sydney University Arts Association, vol. 19, pp. 36-67.
- Christie, W 1997, 'Running with the English Hare and Hunting with the Scotch Bloodhounds', The Byron Journal, vol. 25, pp. 23-31.
- Christie, W 2013, 'Review: Kim Wheatley. Romantic Feuds: Transcending the 'Age of Personality'', The Review of English Studies, vol. 65, no. 270, pp. 557-559.
- Christie, W 2014, 'Review: Lamb, Hazlitt, Keats: Great Shakespeareans, Vol IV by Felicity James, Uttara Natarajan, and Beth Lau', The Keats - Shelley Review, vol. 28, no. 1, pp. 69-73.
- Christie, W 2012, 'Review: Francis Jeffrey's American Journal: New York to Washington 1813', Scottish Literary Review, vol. 4, no. 2, pp. 169-170.
- Christie, W 2012, 'Review: John Keats: A New Life by Nicholas Roe, Yale University Press', Australian Book Review, vol. 347, pp. 23-24.
- Christie, W 2012, 'Review: The Keats Brothers: The Life of John and George by Denise Gigante', Australian Book Review, vol. 340, pp. 48-49.
- Christie, W 2011, 'Review: Thomas Carlyle Resartus: Reappraising Carlyle's Contribution to the Philosophy of History, Political Theory, and Cultural Criticism. Ed. by Paul E. Kerry and Marylu Hill, Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2010', Carlyle Studies Annual: essays on Thomas and Jane Carlyle and their circle, vol. 27, pp. 271-278.
- Christie, W 2011, 'Review: Robert Burns and Pastoral: Poetry and Improvement in Late Eighteenth-Century Scotland (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010) by Nigel Leask', Romanticism, vol. 17, no. 3, pp. 388-391.
- Christie, W 2011, 'Review: The Cambridge Companion to the Sonnet, ed by A.D. Cousins and Peter Howarth, Cambridge University Press', Australian Book Review, vol. 334, pp. 60-61.
- Christie, W 2004, 'Review: British Romanticism and the Edinburgh Review: Bicentenary Essays (2002)', The Bibliotheck: a Scottish journal of bibliography and allied topics, vol. 2, pp. 59-63.
- Christie, W 2003, 'Review: Placing and Displacing Romanticism by Peter Kitson', The Byron Journal, vol. 31, pp. 119-121.
- Christie, W 2003, 'Review: Literary Relationship of Lord Byron and Thomas Moore by Jeffery Vail', Studies in Romanticism, vol. 42, pp. 138-141.
- Christie, W 2003, 'Review: Revenge of the Aesthetic by Michael Clark', Literature and Aesthetics, vol. 13, pp. 118-123.
- Christie, W 2002, 'Review: Burke to Byron, Barbauld to Baillie, 1790-1830 by Jane Stabler', The Byron Journal, vol. 30, pp. 121-122.
- Christie, W 2001, 'Review: Literary Theory from Plato to Barthes by Richard Harland', Literature and Aesthetics, vol. 11, pp. 182-185.
- Christie, W 1998, 'Review: From Romanticism to Critical Theory by Andrew Bowie', Literature and Aesthetics, vol. 8, pp. 139-142.
- Christie, W 1997, 'Review: The Essential Gombrich (1996), ed. R.Woodfield', Literature and Aesthetics, vol. 7, pp. 177-181.
Projects and Grants
Grants information is drawn from ARIES. To add or update Projects or Grants information please contact your College Research Office.
- The Adaptation of Shakespeare in Chinese Traditional Opera (Primary Investigator)
- The Emotional Registers of Liberal Culture in the Long Nineteenth Century (Primary Investigator)
- An Open University: Public lecturing in the Romantic period (Primary Investigator)