Dr Ian Higgins
Areas of expertise
- British And Irish Literature 200503
Research interests
Literary history, literature and politics, pamphlets and pamphleteering, contextual interpretation of literature from the late seventeenth century to the mid-twentieth century. Principal research focus is on literature and politics of the Jacobite era 1688-1788; the life and works of Jonathan Swift (1667-1745); the career and writings of Charles Leslie (1650-1722)
Biography
Ian Higgins received his BA (first class Honours in English, University Medal) and MA from the University of Queensland and his PhD from the University of Warwick in England. He taught at La Trobe University in Melbourne before joining the Australian National University. He has lectured in Britain, Ireland, Europe, and the USA. He works in the field of British and Irish literary studies, and has a particular research interest in the century from the Revolution of 1688 to 1788. He teaches courses at the ANU on British and Irish literature of the seventeenth, eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
Researcher's projects
Ian Higgins is a founding general editor of The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Jonathan Swift (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008 - in progress) which is his main ongoing research project. He is co-editing three volumes for the Cambridge Swift project: two volumes of Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, and a volume of Swift's English Political Writings. He regularly reviews manuscripts, articles and books on eighteenth-century literature for publishers and scholarly journals and publishes essays in his research area.
Past student projects
Supervision of Honours, Masters and PhD theses in the areas of early modern literature, eighteenth-century literature, modern literature, and contemporary literature. Higher Degree Research theses supervised have included projects on John Milton, Richard Lovelace, Jonathan Swift, Daniel Defoe, Christopher Smart, Joseph Conrad, Henry Rider Haggard, D. H. Lawrence and Australia, Evelyn Waugh, Tom Stoppard, James Kelman, and Tony Harrison.
Publications
- Higgins, I 2021, 'Book Review: Political Journalism in London, 1695-1720: Defoe, Swift, Steele and their Contemporaries. By Ashley Marshall (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2020)', The Review of English Studies, vol. 72, no. 307, pp. 1015-1017.
- Higgins, I 2021, 'Masonic Rivalries and Literary Politics in the Jacobite Era', Eighteenth Century Life, vol. 45, no. 2, pp. 93-100.
- Higgins, I 2019, 'A Lash for the World: Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels', in Ken Seigneurie (ed.), A Companion to World Literature, Wiley Blackwell, United Kingdom, pp. 1845-1857.
- Higgins, I 2019, 'Book Review: Brought to Book: Print in Ireland, 1680-1784 by Toby Barnard (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2017)', The Scriblerian and the Kit-Cats, vol. 51, no. 2, pp. 179-181.
- Higgins, I 2019, 'Swift's Whig Pamphlet, Its Reception and Afterlife', in Janika Bischof, Kirsten Juhas, and Hermann J Real (ed.), Reading Swift: Papers from the Seventh Münster Symposium on Jonathan Swift, Wilhelm Fink Verlag, Germany, pp. 553-572.
- Higgins, I 2018, 'Why Jonathan Swift wanted to 'vex the world' with Gulliver's Travels', The Conversation, 9 May 2018.
- Higgins, I 2014, 'Book Review: Hey Presto! Swift and the Quacks (Newark: Delaware, 2011) by Hugh Ormsby-Lennon, pp 412', The Scriblerian and the Kit-Cats, vol. 47, no. 1, pp. 53-55.
- Higgins, I 2014, 'Book Review: The Temporality of Taste in Eighteenth-Century British Writing (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012) by James Noggle, pp viii+234', The Scriblerian and the Kit-Cats, vol. 47, no. 1, pp. 49-51.
- Higgins, I 2014, 'Jonathan Swift's Memoirs of a Jacobite', in Allan I. Macinnes, Kieran German and Lesley Graham (ed.), Living with Jacobitism, 1690-1788: The Three Kingdoms and Beyond, Pickering & Chatto Publishers, London, United Kingdom and Vermont, USA, pp. 71-84.
- Higgins, I 2013, 'Censorship, libel and self-censorship', in Paddy Bullard and James McLaverty (ed.), Jonathan Swift and the Eighteenth-Century Book, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, pp. 179-198.
- Higgins, I 2013, 'A Preface to Swift's Test Act Tracts', in Kirsten Juhas, Hermann J. Real and Sandra Simon (ed.), Reading Swift: Papers from the Sixth Münster Symposium on Jonathan Swift, Wilhelm Fink Verlag, Germany, pp. 225-243.
- Higgins, I 2013, 'Jonathan Swift, Financial Revolution, and Anglo-Irish Print Culture', The Eighteenth Century: Theory and Interpretation, vol. 54, Supplement, Essay Reviews online
- Higgins, I 2012, 'Jonathan Swift's Political Biography',The Eighteenth Century Theory and Interpretation, vol. 53, Supplement. Essay Reviews online.
- Higgins, I 2010, 'Love, Harold', in Michael F. Suarez, S.J. and H.R. Woudhuysen (eds), The Oxford Companion to the Book, Oxford University Press, Oxford, United Kingdom, pp. Vol. 2 pg 895.
- Higgins, I 2010, 'Jonathan Swift and Charles Leslie', in Paul Monod, Murray Pittock and Daniel Szechi (eds), Loyalty and Identity: Jacobites at Home and Abroad, Palgrave Macmillan Ltd, London, UK; New York, USA, pp. 149-166.
- Higgins, I & Rawson, C, eds, 2010, The Essential Writings of Jonathan Swift, WW Norton, New York, London.
- Higgins, I 2010, 'Jonathan Swift's political confession', in Claude Rawson (ed.), Politics and Literature in the Age of Swift: English and Irish Perspectives, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom, pp. 3-30.
- Higgins, I 2009, 'The Afterlife of A Modest Proposal', Dean Swift's Modest Proposal at 280, Dean Swift Seminar Series, Dublin, Ireland, online.
- Higgins, I 2008, 'An Argument against Abolishing Christianity and its Contexts', in Hermann J Real (ed.), Reading Swift: Papers from The Fifth Münster Symposium on Jonathan Swift, Wilhelm Fink Verlag, Germany, pp. 203-223.
- Higgins, I 2008, 'Killing no murder: Jonathan Swift and polemical tradition', in Nicholas Hudson and Aaron Santesso (eds), Swift's Travels: Eighteenth Century British Satire and its Legacy, Cambridge University Press, UK, pp. 39-54.
- Higgins, I 2008, 'The Waste Land and Dracula', Notes and Queries , vol. 253 (New Series 55), no. 4, pp. 499-500.
- Higgins, I 2006, Swift's Politics: A Study in Disaffection, paperback edition, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom
- Higgins, I 2005, 'Remarks on Cato's Letters', in David Womersley assisted by Paddy Bullard and Abigail Williams (ed.), Cultures of Whiggism: New Essays on English Literature and Culture in the Long Eighteenth Century, University of Delaware Press / Associated University Presses, United States of America, pp. 127-146.
- Higgins, I 2005, 'Swift, Jonathan (1667-1745)', in M. Keith Booker (ed.), Encyclopedia of literature and politics: censorship, revolution, and writing, Greenwood Publishing Group, Westport USA, pp. 701-702pp.
- Higgins, I & Rawson, C, eds, 2005, Jonathan Swift Gulliver's Travels, Oxford University Press, Oxford, United Kingdom.
- Higgins, I 2004, 'Dryden and Swift', in Claude Rawson and Aaron Santesso (eds), John Dryden (1631-1700) His Politics, His Plays, and His Poets A Tercentenary Celebration Held at Yale University 6-7 October, 2000, University of Delaware Press / Associated University Presses, Delaware, United States of America, pp. 217-234.
- Higgins, I 2004, Jonathan Swift, Northcote House Publishers Ltd, Devon, United Kingdom.
- Higgins, I 2003, 'Language and Style', in Christopher Fox (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Jonathan Swift, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom, pp. 146-160.
- Higgins, I 2003, 'Jonathan Swift and the Jacobite Diaspora', in Hermann J. Real, Helgard Stover-Leidig (eds), Reading Swift: Papers from The Fourth Münster Symposium on Jonathan Swift, Wilhelm Fink Verlag, Germany, pp. 87-103.
- Higgins, I 2003, 'Satire', in Steven R. Serafin and Valerie Grosvenor Myer (eds), The Continuum Encyclopedia of British Literature, Continuum Publishing Company, New York USA, pp. 866-868.
- Higgins, I 2003, 'The Politics of A Modest Proposal', Dean Swift: The Politics of Satire A Symposium on Jonathan Swift and the Politics in his Age, ed. Dr Bob Mahony, Dr Roy Johnston, Dean Swift Seminar Series, Dublin, Ireland, online
- Higgins, I & Rawson, C, eds, 2002, The Basic Writings of Jonathan Swift, The Modern Library, New York.