Professor of American Literature , University of Stavanger, Norway
Employment
2021- present Professor of American Literature, Department of Cultural Studies and Languages, University of Stavanger
2017-2021 Associate Professor of American Literature and Culture, Department of Cultural Studies and Languages, University of Stavanger
2015-2017 Postdoctoral Fellow, Humanities Institute, University College Dublin, Ireland
2013-2015 Teacher of English for Academic Purposes, University of Córdoba, Spain
2012-2013 Teaching Adjunct, School of English, Queen’s University, Belfast
Academic Publications
Monographs
2025 Masculinity in the works of George Saunders (current project)
2020 Beards and Masculinity in American Literature. Routledge
2015 Masculinity in Contemporary New York Fiction. Routledge
Peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters
2023 “This is how I feel: Shame and Masculinity in the short fiction of George Saunders” (currently writing)
2023 “Ghosts, guilt, and masculinity in the short fiction of George Saunders” (currently writing)
2022 “Melville, Masculinity, and the Sea”: Beards and Shaving in Herman Meville’s narratives of maritime masculinity (under review)
2022 “Get Back to the Beard: Paul McCartney’s facial hair and the end of The Beatles” (under review)
2020 “The Periodical and the Flâneur in Early American Writing.” New York: A Literary History. Ed. Ross Wilson. Cambridge University Press, 2020, 165-179.
2017 “Writing Men on the Margins: Joseph Mitchell, Masculinity and the Flâneur in New York City.” Literary Journalism Studies. Vol. 9 No. 2 (Fall 2017): 52-73.
2017 “The Beard, Masculinity, and Otherness in the Contemporary American Novel.” Journal of American Studies Vol. 51 No. 1 (Feb 2017): 163-182.
2013 “Writing Men: Recognising the Sociological Impact of Counter-Hegemonic Masculinities in American Fiction.” Masculinities and Social Change Vol.2 No.2 (2013): 146-166.
2013 “Paul Auster and Models of American Fatherhood: Reading Counter Hegemonic Father Figures in Auster’s fiction.” Paul Auster: Special Issue of Critical Engagements (UK Network for Modern Fiction Studies) Ed. Mark Brown (Lulu, 2013) 20-32.
2012 “An Interpretation of Masculinity in Manhattan: Reading Jed Rubenfeld’s The Interpretation of Murder.” Atlantis (Journal of the Spanish Association of Anglo-American Studies) Vol. 34 No.2 (Dec 2012): 49-65.
2011 “Reading Manhattan, Reading American Masculinity: Reintroducing the flâneur with E.B. White’s Here is New York and Joshua Ferris’ The Unnamed.” Culture, Society and Masculinities Vol. 3 No.1 (2011): 49-61. Peter Ferry CV 2
Conference Papers
2023 “I just want to feel: Shame and Masculinity in George Saunders’ fiction” ALA 2023, Boston
2022 “Melville, Masculinity, and the Sea”: Beards and Shaving in Herman Meville’s narratives of maritime masculinity (ASANOR 2022)
2019 “Monumental Beards in American Literature” Nordic Association for American Studies Conference, University of Bergen, Norway (April 2019)
2018 “The Bards and their Beards: Walt Whitman’s “Beard Full of Butterflies” in the poetry of Federico Garcia Lorca and Allen Ginsberg.” Spanish Association of Anglo-American Studies Conference, University of Córdoba, Spain (November 2018)
2018 “Writing Men? Beards and Masculinities in American Literature”
Faculty of Humanities Research Conference University of Stavanger (August 2018)
2017 “Writing the City, Writing Masculinity: The Flâneur in Contemporary American Fiction” Keynote at the Masculinity & the Metropolis Conference, University of Kent (April 2017)
Grants and Awards
2019 Increasing International Research Mobility Grant
University of Stavanger Research Support Network
Funding to conduct research at British Library for book project
2015-2017 Government of Ireland Postdoctoral Fellowship
2-year fellowship for project on the flâneur and masculinity in 19th century American writing.
2012 “Masculinities in Motion” Scholarship
Funding to present paper at “Masculinities in Motion – Men and (E)Quality of Life” conference, University of Oslo, Norway.
2011 Helen Ramsey Turtle Award
Scholarship to fund research trip to visit the Shere Hite Archive, Schlesinger Library, Harvard and the Paul Auster Archive at the New York Public Library.
2010 “Performing the Invisible” Scholarship
Funding to present paper at the ‘Performing the Invisible’ Conference, L’Université Sorbonne Nouvelle, Paris III. Paper was subsequently published in journal Culture, Society, Masculinities.
2010-2013 Queen’s University / Department of Employment and Learning Northern Ireland Scholarship
Full three-year full maintenance and fees scholarship won to complete doctoral project.
Teaching
MA
MLI365 Literature in Context
MLI305 Authors, Readers, Texts
MLIMAS Writing a MA Thesis
BA
ENG175 American Literature and Culture
ENG291 Writing a BA Thesis
Other Scholarly Activity
2022- External Examiner of PhD thesis at University of Malaga, Spain
2022- External Examiner of MA theses at University of Bergen, Norway
2019- External Examiner of ENG122 “American Literature and Culture” at University of Bergen, Norway
2017- Internal Examiner for BA Literature theses at the University of Stavanger
2017- Internal Examiner of MA Literature theses at the University of Stavanger
2016-2017 Chair of the Literature Category of the Global Undergraduate Awards
2014-present Judge of the Literature Category of the Global Undergraduate Awards
2012-2013 Board Member of the American Men’s Studies Association