Dr Nicola Parsons

BA, ANU, PhD, Melb
Lecturer
Room S347, A20 - John Woolley Building

+61 2 9036 7229

My research is focused on eighteenth-century literature and cultural history. I’m especially interested in reading practices and forms of literary sociability. My first book, Reading Gossip in Early Eighteenth-Century England (Palgrave, 2009), concentrates on texts by Delariver Manley, Daniel Defoe, Richard Steele, Edmund Curll and Jane Barker and shows how gossip modelled an interpretative strategy that shaped readers' participation in both literary culture and in public debates. My two current research projects extend these interests into the long eighteenth century. I have published articles on Delarivier Manley, Queen Anne’s correspondence with the Duchess of Marlborough, and Jane Barker. Before coming to Sydney, I lectured in the English Department at the University of Melbourne.

Research areas

• Eighteenth-century literature and cultural history
• theories and histories of reading
• cultures of scandal and sociability
• literary Jacobitism
• literary history and historical fiction

Current projects

• Haywood/Defoe
  This research project focuses on the twinned careers of Eliza Haywood and Daniel Defoe in order to investigate the impact of gender and nationalism in debates surrounding the rise of the novel in eighteenth century.
• Reading the (Re)Presented Past: Literature and Historical Consciousness, 1700 to the present, with Dr Kate Mitchell (ANU)
  This collection of essays examines the relationship between the reader and the represented past in British fiction since the eighteenth century, focusing on the intersection of historical representation, fictional techniques, and reading practices. Our aim is to provide a clearer understanding of the reader’s role in negotiating the relationship between past and present as it is mediated by the literary text.

Selected publications

Book

• Reading Gossip in Early Eighteenth-Century England, Basingstoke, UK & New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009

Book Chapters

• ‘Redrawing the Carte de Tendre: Mapping Intimacy and Writing in Queen Anne’s Court’, in Expanding the Canon: Early Modern Women’s Writing, 1550-1750, Ed. Paul Salzman. Aldershot: Ashgate, forthcoming
• ‘Unlocking Court Culture: Delarivier Manley’s New Atalantis’, in The Libertine Enlightenment: Sex, Liberty and Licence in the Eighteenth Century. Eds. Peter Cryle and Lisa O’Connell. Basingstoke, UK & New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004. 145-160.
• ‘Materialising the Modern Reader: Negotiating Reference and Representation in the Secret History’, submission invited to The Reader in History. Ed. Bill Bell and Ross Alloway. (Collection in progress)

Teaching

As part of my interest in tertiary level teaching I have a Graduate Certificate in Educational Studies (Higher Education) from the University of Sydney (2008). Here are some of the units I currently teach:

• ENGL2611: Jane Austen and her Contemporaries
• ENGL2659: The Eighteenth Century: Scandal and Sociability
• ENGL 3654: Libertine Literature: Sex & Politics
• ENGL IV Hons: The Eighteenth Century Novel: Theory and Practice