University of Edinburgh

States of Vigilance: A Study of Devotional Lyrics & State Formation in Seventeenth Century England

Academic History:

2014 - present: PhD English Literature (University of Edinburgh)

2010 - 2011: MSc Literature & Modernity (University of Edinburgh)

2007 - 2010: BA (Hons) English Literature (University of Sussex)

Supervisors:

Professor James Loxley

Dr Dermot Cavanagh

Research Interests:

• 17C Devotional & Metaphysical Poetry
• History of English State Formation/State forms
• Ecclesiastical & Liturgical History
• Reformation Theology
• Early Modern Political Theory
• Frankfurt School Critical Theory
• History of the Aesthetic/Aesthetic Theory
• Marxism
• John Donne
• Shakespeare
• Modernist/Late-Modernist Poetry & Culture

Current Research Project:

My current research attempts to chart a correspondence between processes of English State formation & formal development in English devotional poetry, c. 1590 - 1660. My thesis suggests that processes of autonomisation are observable in devotional poetry of the seventeenth century & that these may be read as responsive to a historical dynamic that also entails the structural separation of state & society - a defining feature, I argue, of the Bourgeois state form. My first chapter is focused on the Oath of Allegiance controversy (1606-10) & John Donne's "A Litanie" (1608).

Previous Research Projects:

• I wrote my MSc dissertation on the early poetry of J.H. Prynne.
• For my undergraduate dissertation I wrote on William Wordsworth's 'Ode to Immortality'.

Scholarships/Awards/Publications:

• AHRC PhD Studentship, Edinburgh University, 2014 - present
• Chancellor's Scholarship, Sussex University, 2007 - 2010

Conferences:

Transforming Male Devotional Practices (2015) - University of Hull - 'Oh, to vex me, contraries meet in one': John Donne's "A Litanie" & the Oath of Allegiance Controversy (1606-10).

Contact Details:

Address: 4.38, 50 George Square, School of Literatures, Languages & Cultures, University of Edinburgh, EH8 9LH

Email: j.e.gallagher@sms.ed.ac.uk

First published: 1 October 2014