Benjamin Bateman

Senior Lecturer in Post-1900 British Literature

Biography

Background

Benjamin studied English and political science as an undergraduate at the University of Virginia, where he remained for his graduate study. After completing his doctorate in 2009, he taught and served as the director of The Center for the Study of Genders and Sexualities at California State University, Los Angeles. He joined The University of Edinburgh in 2018 as a lecturer in post-1900 British literature. Benjamin is currently the lead judge for The James Tait Black Prize in Fiction, the coordinator of the How to Read a Novel MOOC, and the People and Equalities Director for the School of Literatures, Languages, and Cultures (LLC). 

Undergraduate teaching

Benjamin teaches Global LGBT Fiction and Climate Change Fiction at the honours level, and he delivers lectures for CP: Criticism. He has also led tutorials in EL1 and EL2, and he has served as course organizer for CP: Prose. 

Postgraduate teaching

Benjamin teaches Modernist Aesthetics and Late Modernism and Beyond for the MSc in Literature and Modernity. 

Open to PhD supervision enquiries?

Yes

Areas of interest for supervision

Benjamin welcomes project proposals in modernism and contemporary literature, queer theory, queer of colour critique, LGBT fiction, and the environmental humanities. 

Current PhD students supervised

Chloe Leung (Principal Supervisor)

Heather Milligan (Principal Supervisor)

Aiswarya Jayamohan (Principal Supervisor)

Eftychia Saxoni (Principal Supervisor)

Umar Shehzad (Principal Supervisor)

Rupeng Chen (Assistant Supervisor)

Avani Udgaonkar (Assistant Supervisor)

 

 

Past PhD students supervised

Bridget Moynihan (Assistant Supervisor)

Research summary

Benjamin's primary research interests lie in modern and contemporary literature, queer theory, and the environmental humanities. His first book, The Modernist Art of Queer Survival--published by Oxford University Press in 2017--examines precarious and collaborative forms of survival in the fiction and autobiographical prose of Oscar Wilde, Henry James, E.M. Forster, and Willa Cather. In his newest work on 'queer disappearance,' Benjamin is bringing novels by Forster and Cather into conversation with more recent LGBT and climate change fiction to explore how queer communities' stubborn attachments to despair, discretion, deprecation, and disappearance offer a counterpoint to the ecologically destructive and self-inflationary hyperproductivity of contemporary biopolitics and neoliberalism.  Early material from this project has recently appeared in ISLE and Contemporary Women's Writing, and the full manuscript--entitled Queer Disappearance in Modern and Contemporary Fiction--is under contract with Oxford University Press.

Knowledge exchange

Benjamin is interested in bringing his teaching and research in contemporary LGBT fiction and climate change fiction into conversation with local schools, nonprofits, community organizations, and book clubs. He has led seminars and tutorials in queer theory at the Feminist Autonomous Centre for Research in Athens, Greece, and he is currently working with a team of teachers/researchers through the Council for At-Risk Academics (Cara) to provide humanities-based pedagogical assistance to Syrian academics. 

Research activities

View all 5 activities on Research Explorer

View all 13 publications on Research Explorer

This article was published on