Images of Idiocy: The Idiot Figure in Modern Fiction and Film

I am a specialist in American cultural, intellectual and literary history of the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries and in the health humanities. I am Professor of American Studies in the Centre for American Studies and am currently the Head of the School of Arts. I served as Deputy Pro-Vice Chancellor International (2013-16), the Director of International Strategy for the College of Social Sciences, Arts and Humanities (2013-18), a Midlands3Cities Doctoral Training Partnership Site Director (2013-18), Head of the School of English (2008-13), and Director of American Studies (2005-8). 

I am the Co-Lead for Humanities and Social Sciences for the University’s Wellcome Trust Institutional Strategic Support Fund and a member of the Action on Communities on Health and Equality group.

Beyond Leicester, I am the President of the English Association, following four years as the Association’s Chair of Trustees. I was Chair of the British Association for American Studies (2010-13), after serving as Vice-Chair of BAAS and Chair of Publications. I am currently an Ambassador for Postgraduates and Early Career Researchers for the European Association for American Studies, after serving as the UK Ambassador for EAAS for five years.

I chaired the QAA Subject Benchmark Review Group in 2014-15 that produced the latest English Benchmark statement. I was a panel member of the English Language and Literature Subpanel for the Research Excellence Framework REF2014, and am a subpanel member in REF2021 for the criteria-setting and assessment stages, as well as being the named REF2021 interdisciplinary lead for Unit of Assessment 29.

I was an Arts and Humanities Research Council’s Peer Reviewer 2006-15 and a Strategic Reviewer 2011-15, and I sat on the AHRC’s postgraduate funding panel 2006-9. I currently sit on the AHRC’s Science in Culture Advisory Group and am a member of the cross-research council Mental Health Experts Group. In November 2016 I became Co-Chair the Arts and Humanities Alliance. In this role I sit on the British Academy’s Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences Skills Advisory Group and the Strategic Forum for the Humanities.

I am a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, a Fellow of the English Association, and a member of BAAS, EAAS, the Organization of American Historians (OAH), the International Association of University Professors of English (IAUPE), the Modernist Studies Association (MSA), the American Studies Association (ASA), the Modern Language Association (MLA) and the American Sociological Association. I am a regular member of the Intellectual History Group based at Jesus College, University of Cambridge since 2002.

Education 

BA English, University of Exeter
MA Critical Theory, University of Exeter
PhD American Studies, University of Nottingham
Senior Fellow of the UK Higher Education Academy
ILM Award Level 7 in Strategic Leadership

Source: University of Leicester