University of Sunderland

Long Eighteenth Century

The four members of this research area have had 7 funding awards since 2000-01 (5 AHRB/C Research Leave Scheme; 1 Leverhulme Research Fellowship; 1 Leverhulme Research Project Grant). The group is cohesive in terms of research interests, as witnessed by the 'Sarah Fielding symposium' held at Northumbria University in 2002, at which three staff from Sunderland gave papers.

Group members have been engaged in the following activities:

• Before Depression: Representation and Culture of the English Malady, 1660-1800 - a 3-year research project (2006-9) worth £223,745, run in collaboration with Northumbria University. The project team includes a Research Fellow (Dr. Leigh Wetherall-Dickson) and two funded doctoral students, one supervised by Prof. Terry and Prof. Sim, who are co-directors of the project. The project involves a conference (2008) and publications such as a special edition of the journal Studies in the Literary Imagination (edited by Prof. Terry for 2009), and a jointly-authored monograph by Prof. Sim and Prof. Terry, Prof. Allan Ingram and Dr. Clark Lawlor (Northumbria), and Dr. Wetherall-Dickson. The conference is to be organised under the auspices of CIRBEL: Centre Interdisciplinaire de Recherche sur les Iles Britanniques et l'Europe des Lumieres (based at Montpellier University). Before Depression is an interdisciplinary enquiry analysing how depression was figured in English culture before it was recognised as a clinical condition. The public lecture series that is an integral element of the project, presenting scholars from a range of disciplines (including medicine and the humanities), exemplifies our policy of making our research accessible to the wider public, as does the project exhibition which will be held at the Shipley Art Gallery, Gateshead, in 2008 to coincide with the conference.

• Bunyan Studies. The refereed annual journal Bunyan Studies (1988-) has been published out of the English department since 1994. Bunyan Studies has an editorial board of distinguished scholars, and subscribers throughout Europe, North America, Australia, South Africa, and Japan. The journal was founded by Prof. Sim and Prof. W. R. Owens (OU), and maintains close links with the International John Bunyan Society, based at the University of Alberta. It has been centrally involved in the organisation of the Society's triennial conferences (in this RAE cycle, Kent State University, Ohio (2001), De Montfort University, Bedford (2004), Dartmouth College, NH (2007).

Further information can be found on the English: Long Eighteenth Century website.