Allan Hepburn
modernism; contemporary fiction; British and American novel; Irish literature; Canadian fiction; Elizabeth Bowen; mid-century fiction; Ivy Compton-Burnett; Muriel Spark; Graham Greene; James Joyce; Edith Wharton; John Le Carr茅; ideas of the future; faith and fiction; material culture; opera and literature; narrative theory; spy fiction; visual culture; objects and things; collectors and collections; aesthetics; history of the novel
I have published three monographs, eight edited books, and fifty-five articles. If I were obliged to name just one specialty that unites these publications, I would probably say 鈥渢he novel.鈥� I teach courses on British, Irish, and American fiction, and my research concentrates on novelistic entanglements with cultural issues, such as espionage, fine art, and religion. My next monograph bears the provisional title, 鈥淐itizenship in Mid-Century British Literature: War, Statehood, Extinction.鈥� This book addresses changing ideas of belonging, as represented in novels, from the Second World War through the Welfare State. Specific chapters focus on queer citizenship, racialized citizens, nuclear extinction, and military service as a component of belonging in mid-century Britain.
Ph.D. (Princeton)
B.A., M.A. (University of Western Ontario)
Books
听(Oxford University Press, 2018)
(University of Toronto Press, 2010)
听(Yale University Press, 2005)
Edited Books
Friendship and the Novel听(McGill-Queen's UP, 2024)
听(Co-edited with Isabelle Daunais. Toronto: U of Toronto P, 2020)
听(Northwestern UP, 2017)
(McGill-Queen's University Press, 2016)
听(Edinburgh University Press, 2010)
听(Edinburgh University Press, 2008)
听(Edinburgh University Press, 2008)
听(University of Toronto Press, 2007)
Articles and Book Chapters
鈥溾�� Irish Studies Review 31.4 (2023).听
鈥溾�� PMLA 138.2 (2023), 290-305.听
鈥溾�� Journal of Modern Literature vol. 46, no. 2 (2023), 157-73.听
Reviews and Public Scholarship
Over the years, I have reviewed books for the ,听Toronto Review of Books, Boston Book Review, Quill & Quire, National Post, and other journals.
As a pianist, I have an abiding interest in classical music. I have given talks about opera to the Op茅ra de Montr茅al and the Canadian Opera Company. Back when I wrote a lot of journalism, I occasionally provided program notes for the Canadian Opera Company.
I have given interviews on CBC and BBC radio about such topics as pseudonyms, George Orwell鈥檚 popularity, and spy fiction.
Because of my first book, called Intrigue: Espionage and Culture, I have been invited hither and yon to talk about spy fiction. In this clip, I introduce (in French) some of the literary aspects of .听
Elizabeth Bowen is a cornerstone of my research. With two other experts, I participated in about Bowen鈥檚 life and career.
In addition to co-editing the Oxford Mid-Century Studies series, I also co-edit the McGill-Queen鈥檚 University Press.
- Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, 2022
- SSHRC Insight Grant, 2015-19
- SSHRC Standard Research Grant, 2011-14
- Carrie M. Derick Award for Graduate Teaching and Supervision, McGill University, 2009
- SSHRC Standard Research Grant, 2007-10
- SSHRC Standard Research Grant, 2002-05
- University of Toronto Teaching Award, 1998
- SSHRC Post-Doctoral Fellowship, 1990-92
I supervise MA and PhD students in a wide range of twentieth-century and contemporary literature. Some recent projects include terrorism in contemporary British fiction; Alan Hollinghurst鈥檚 sexual politics; soundscapes in Samuel Beckett鈥檚 radio plays; Muriel Spark and acoustics; the legal concept of privacy in mid-century fiction; confession in Irish literature; Seamus Heaney and pastoral poetry; treason and transnational literature; female middlebrow comedy; British novels about the occupation of France; and so on.
University of Toronto