School of Social, Historical and Literary Studies

Profile

Mark joined the University of Portsmouth in 2006, having previously taught at the University of Southampton, where he gained his PhD.  Mark also has strong connections with the Ruskin Programme at the University of Lancaster.  His principal interest is in the work of John Ruskin, with a particular emphasis on nineteenth-century scientific contexts and the interplay in Ruskin’s work of materiality, creativity, and culture.  He is currently working on a monograph on Ruskin’s Guild of Saint George.

Book

• The Lost Companion and John Ruskin’s Guild Idea (contracted to Anthem Press, December 2012). 

Journal Articles

• '"A strange coincidence [...] between trees and communities of men": the Law of Help and the formation of societies in Modern Painters V', Nineteenth Century Prose, special Ruskin edition (Fall 2011)
• 'The Everyday Marvels of Rust and Moss: John Ruskin and the ecology of the mundane', Green Letters: Studies in Ecocriticism, Spring 2011.
• 'A Vital Truth: Ruskin, Science and Dynamic Materiality', Journal of Victorian Literature and Culture, 39.2 (2011).
• '"The Guilty Ship": Ruskin, Turner, and Dabydeen', Journal of Commonwealth Literature, 45:3 (September 2010).
• 'The Organic Impulse: Ruskin, trees, architecture, and society', The Eighth Lamp: Ruskin Studies (OScholars), June 2009.

Chapter in edited collection

• ‘The Vitality of Helpful Nature’, in Ruskin and Vital Beauty [provisional title], ed. by Lars Spuybroek (Amsterdam: v2 Institute for the Unstable Media, 2011).

Current Research Project

Current work involves producing a definitive critical account of John Ruskin’s Guild of St. George.

Grants Received

• Routledge Conference Travel Grant, July 2010.
• British Academy, CEISR, and NVSA international conference funding, NVSA 2009, The Victorian Everyday, Wellesley College, Massachusetts.
• AHRC doctoral funding, 2001-2005.