Who's who

Helen Thomas received her DPhil in English Studies from Oxford University in 1996. She previously obtained a first class degree in English and American Studies from Keele University. She is an active researcher with particular interests in C18th literature and culture, postcolonial theory and texts, black British writing, slave narratives, literature reflecting international conflicts and the relationship between law and literature.

Her publications include Romanticism and Slave Narratives (Cambridge University Press, 2000), Caryl Phillips (2006), The Nose Book: Representations of the Nose in Art and Literature (2000) as well as a forthcoming chapter on British Slave Narratives in a volume by Oxford University Press.

Helen is currently researching the dynamics between law, literature and medicine, having organized a conference on Law, Literature and Film at the University of Plymouth, 2009. Below is a list of selected publications.

Selected publications

Books

• Romanticism and Slave Narratives: Transatlantic Testimonies (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000) 342 pp.
• Helen Thomas, Victoria de Rijke and Lena Ostermark-Johansen, eds., The Nose Book: Representations of the Nose in Art and Literature (London: Middlesex University Press, 2000) 342pp.
• Caryl Phillips (Tavistock: Northcote Press, 2006) 100pp.
• Black Writers in Britain, 1770-2000. To be published by Manchester University Press.

Chapters and journal papers

• ‘Slave Narratives, the Romantic Imagination and Transatlantic Literature', in The Oxford Handbook of the African American Slave ed. John Earnest (Oxford University Press) to be published 2011/2012 (tbc).
• ‘Romanticism and Abolitionism: Mary Wollstonecraft, William Blake, Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth', in Romanticism: Critical Concepts in Literary and Cultural Studies, Routledge Major Work Series (London: Routledge, 2005) Vol. II, pp. 253-297.
• ‘The Sphinx's Nose and the Decipherment of Culture' in Representations of the Nose in Literature and Art, ed. Helen Thomas, V. de Rijke and Lena Ostermark-Johansen (Middlesex: Middlesex University Press, 2000), pp. 149-168.
• ‘Black on White: Textual Spaces in Black Britain', Wasafiri: Caribbean, African, Asian and Associated Literatures in English Spring 1999 pp. 5-7.
• ‘The Politics of Reproduction: Pregnancy, Abortion, Infanticide and the Black Female Slave', Gender and Catastrophe, ed. Ronit Lentin (London: Zed Press, 1997) pp. 184-193.

Conference papers

• ‘Intimacy, Illness and Death', Writings of Intimacy in the Twentieth and Twentieth-First Centuries, Loughborough University, 10-12 September 2010.
• ‘Performing Blackness in C18th Britain': On Whose Terms? Conference, Goldsmith's College, University of London, March 2008.
• ‘Where Shall We Put this Book? The Development of Libraries and Reading Rooms in C18th and C19th Britain', The English Subject Centre, University of West England, February 2008.
• ‘Reading (the) Spaces: the Development of C18th Reading Rooms and Libraries', English Research Centre, University of Plymouth, 2005.
• ‘Reading Blackness: Reading Equiano', Equiano International Conference, Kingston University, April 2003.
• 'Performance, Sexuality and Praxis: Jackie Kay's Trumpet', Writing Europe Conference: 2001, University of Amsterdam, April 2001.
• ‘Colonialism and the Concept of Freedom: Sierra Leone and Liberia', Defining Colonies Conference: Slavery and Abolition, Queen Mary College, April 2001.
• ‘Reading the Slave Narratives', African Readerships Conference, Cambridge University, May 1999.
• ‘Creolising Lesbianisms: Sexual Identity and Autobiography', SubVersions / InVersions Conference, Goldsmiths College, September 1998.
• ‘Cultural History in Transition: Phyllis Wheatley's Poems', Women and Poetry Conference, Oxford Brookes University, September 1997.
• ‘Space, the Final Frontier? Romanticism, Gender and Race', Romantic Boundaries Conference, Sheffield Hallam University, June 1993.
• ‘Women and Eroticism in Keats' Poetry', The Wordsworth Conference, The Lake District, July 1992.

Review articles

• ‘Romanticism and Colonialism: Writing Empire, 1780-1830', Interventions Spring 1999, pp. 292-294.
• ‘"Where Are They Gonna Bury Me When I Die?": Black Women Writers and the Harlem Renaissance', Stand Magazine, February 1998, pp. 31-34.
• ‘Toni Morrison: A Profile', Wasafiri: Caribbean, African, Asian and Associated Literatures in English, No. 20, Autumn 1994.
• ‘Straight, No Chaser: Toni Morrison's Jazz', African Peoples Review, June 1992.