School of Social, Historical and Literary Studies

Profile

Christopher Pittard joined the University of Portsmouth in 2009, having taught at Exeter and Newcastle. He currently teaches on nineteenth century literature, detective fiction, and on the MA in Literature, Culture and Identity. His research interests include Victorian culture, particularly popular culture of the fin de siècle; Charles Dickens; popular fiction, particularly narratives of crime and detection; literary and cultural geographies (including the cultural history of the London Underground); and conjuring and secular magic in literature. He is a member of the editorial advisory board for The Journal of Popular Culture and an honorary fellow of the Centre for Victorian Studies at the University of Exeter.

QUALIFICATIONS

PhD English/Victorian Studies, University of Exeter
MA English (Criticism and Theory) Dist., University of Exeter
BA (Hons) 1st, English, University of Exeter

PUBLICATIONS

Monographs

Purity and Contamination in Late Victorian Detective Fiction (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2011).

Articles

“We are Seeing the Past through the Wrong End of the Telescope: Time, Space and Psychogeography in Castle Dor.” Women: A Cultural Review 20.1 (2009): 57-73.

“The Real Sensation of 1887: Fergus Hume and The Mystery of a Hansom Cab.” Clues: A Journal of Detection 26.1 (2008): 37-48.

‘Cheap, healthful literature’: The Strand Magazine, Fictions of Crime, and Purified Reading Communities.” Victorian Periodicals Review 40.1 (2007): 1-23.

Book Chapters and Introductions

“The English Detective Story.” The Oxford History of the Novel in English (Volume 4) 1880-1940. Ed. Patrick Parrinder (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2009).

Introduction to H. F. Heard, The Notched Hairpin (Nevada City: Blue Dolphin, 2010).

“Nineteenth-Century Popular Crime Fiction.” The Blackwell Companion to Crime Fiction. Ed. Lee Horsley and Charles Rzepka (Oxford: Blackwell, 2010).

Book Reviews, Review Essays, and Encyclopaedia Entries

“Psychological Thrillers.” The Blackwell Encyclopaedia of the Gothic. Eds. Andrew Smith, David Punter and William Hughes (Oxford: Blackwell, 2011).

Rev. of David James, Contemporary British Fiction and the Artistry of Space: Style, Landscape, Perception. Style 43.1 (2010), pp forthcoming.

“‘The Unknown – with a Capital U!’ Richard Marsh and Victorian Popular Fiction.” Clues: A Journal of Detection 27.1 (2009): 99-103.

“Tracing the Downward Path: Degeneration at the Victorian fin de siècle.” Peer English 2 (2007): 136-42.

Rev. of Lawrence Frank, Victorian Detective Fiction and the Nature of Evidence: The Scientific Investigations of Poe, Dickens and Doyle.  Peer English 1 (2006): 77-81.

“The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes,” “A Study in Scarlet,” “The Yellow Face,” “The Man with the Twisted Lip,” “Who Killed Zebedee?” and “The Secret Garden.” The Companion to
the British Short Story. Ed. Andrew Maunder (New York: Facts on File, 2006).

FUNDING AND AWARDS

• British Association for Victorian Studies Postdoctoral Bursary 2008
• Van Arsdel Prize (for Victorian Periodical Research) 2006
• British Association for Victorian Studies Postgraduate Bursary 2004
• Arts and Humanities Research Council Doctoral Award 2002-2005