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Associate Professor Barry Spurr

Associate Professor Barry Spurr

MLitt Oxf. MA PhD, FACE

+61 2 9351 2689

Research areas

Current projects

  • Book on T.S. Eliot's Anglo-Catholicism.
  • Ongoing research into Donne and Milton.

Selected publications

Books

  • 'Anglo-Catholic in Religion': T.S. Eliot and Christianity, Lutterworth, Cambridge, 2009 [forthcoming]
  • See the Virgin Blest: representations of the Virgin Mary in English Poetry. Palgrave Macmillan, US, 2007
  • Studying Poetry. 2nd edition, Palgrave Macmillan, UK, 2006
  • Successful Oral Presentations. New Frontier, Epping, 2006
  • Successful Essay-Writing. New Frontier: Epping, 2005.
  • Lytton Strachey. Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen.1995.
  • The Word in the Desert. Cambridge: Lutterworth. 1995.

Other Publications

  • 'What is the difference between King Lear and Ginger Meggs?', Postmodernism in Education, Warrane College Monograph No. 11(Warrane College: Kensington, 2006), pp 8-23.
  • 'W.B. Yeats', Literary Encyclopedia [on-line]. www.LitEncyc.com , 2005
  • 'The Bloomsbury Group', Literary Encyclopedia [on-line].
    www.LitEncyc.com, 2005
  • 'Lytton Strachey', Literary Encyclopedia [on-line]. www.LitEncyc.com, (2005)
  • 'English Studies in Crisis’, in Naomi Smith, ed., Education and the Ideal (New Frontier: Sydney, 2004), pp 63-84.
  • 'The genesis of Milton’s sentences’, in David Brooks and Brian Kiernan, eds, Running Wild: Essays, Fictions and Memoirs Presented to Michael Wilding (Sydney Association for Studies in Society and Culture: Manohar: New Delhi, 2004), pp 43-53.
  • 'The via negativa in the Poetry and Thought of T.S. Eliot’, in Christopher Hartney and Andrew McGarrity, eds, The Dark Side [proceedings of the 2002 Australian and International Religion, Literature and the Arts Conference], (RLA Press: Sydney, 2004), pp 43-53.
  • 'Felicity Incarnate: Rediscovering Thomas Traherne', in Eugene Cunnar and Jeffrey Johnson, eds Discovering and (Re)Covering the Seventeenth Century Religious Lyric (Duquesne University Press: Pittsburgh, 2001), pp 273-289.
  • "T.S. Eliot", Encyclopedia of the Essay Fitzroy Dearborn, Chicago and London, 1997, 249-251.
  • "'Marking time'?: Milton's Recapitulation Revisited", in G. Little, ed. Imperfect Apprehensions. Sydney: Challis Press, pp. 100-114. 1996.
  • "Salvation and Damnation in the Divine Meditations of John Donne", in W. Shaw ed. Praise Disjoined New York: Peter Lang, pp. 166-74. 1991.
  • "The John Donne Papers of Wesley Milgate", John Donne Journal 15: 189-201. 1997.
  • "'Sable-stoled Sorcerers'", Milton Quarterly 26 (May): 45-6. 1992.
  • "Eliot and the Seventeenth Century", Hellas 2 (Autumn): 278-90. 1991.
  • "Camp Mandarin: The Prose Style of Lytton Strachey", English Literature in Transition 33 (February): 31-45. 1990.
  • "The Miracle of Order: Lytton Strachey's Essayist's Art", Prose Studies 12 (December): 240-58. 1989.
  • "G.M. Hopkins: The Poet as Sacramentalist", Sydney Studies in English 4: 38-49. 1978-9.
  • "Why Literacy Matters", News Weekly no. 2497 (November): 11-13. 1996.
  • "'That string of excellences': Thomas Hardy and the Book of Common Prayer", The Thomas Hardy Journal 12 (May): 38-9. 1996
  • "Expert Beyond Experience: a tribute to Dame Helen Gardner", Oxford Magazine 4 (Trinity Term): 20, 22.1992.
  • T.S. Eliot (Classroom Video) Sydney. 1992.
  • Sylvia Plath (Classroom Video) Sydney. 1992.
  • "Eliot’s quest for the centre of meaning in Four Quartets", Seeking the Centre, (RLA Press:, Sydney, 2002), pp 370-378
  • 'The Language of Sport’, Arts, 23, 2001, 82-99.
  • 'True confessions? Ted Hughes’ Birthday Letters’, Sydney Studies in English, 27, 2001, 74-89.
  • 'The Theology of "La Corona", John Donne Journal, 20, 2001, 121-139.
  • '"I loved old Tom": T.S. Eliot and David Jones', Yeats Eliot Review,17, Winter, 2001, [19]-25.
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Areas of teaching and Specific Topics

Teaching

  • Renaissance studies
  • Modernism
  • Religious literature
  • Contemporary Australian poetry.

Specific Topics

  • Donne
  • Milton
  • T.S. Eliot
  • Lytton Strachey
  • liturgical language
  • poetry about the Virgin Mary
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