Staff profile

Brief Bio:

I studied at the Universities of Oxford (MA; DPhil) and York (MA). After receiving my doctorate, I taught for various colleges at the University of Oxford. I was a Junior Research Fellow at Worcester College (University of Oxford, 2012–2016) and then worked as a Departmental and College Lecturer in English at St Hugh’s College (University of Oxford) before joining Durham University’s Department of English Studies in 2018.

Research:

My research interests span the long eighteenth century, with a special focus on:

• theatre and performance
• political history
• slavery and abolition
• gender
• autobiographies
• Romantic-period print culture

My first book, Staging the Peninsular War: English Theatres 1807-1815 (Ashgate/Routledge, 2015/2016) draws upon a range of visual, printed and manuscript sources in order to examine the larger political and ideological axes of Romantic-period performance. It explores how, during the seven vexed years that marked the Peninsular War, the English theatres helped ascribe new urgency to issues such as citizenship, patriotism, and the articulation of national identities. It also provides the first printed ‘Calendar of Plays for Covent Garden, Drury Lane and Bristol Theatre Royal, 1807–1815’.

Other essays of mine have focused on Peninsular War poetry and novels; Romantic-period wartime and post-war theatre; women’s writing; satirical prints; and Anglo-Caribbean exchanges (as listed below).

In 2016, I was one of the principal curators for the Bodleian Library’s successful autumn exhibition, Staging History 1780–1840, which explored how and why in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries ‘history’ became a dominant genre in Britain’s theatrical and musical repertoires. This exhibition generated a number of public outreach initiatives (including an introductory video, gallery tours, and a podcast series (available on iTunes). 

I have held visiting fellowships at the Houghton Library (Harvard), the Folger Shakespeare Library (Washington, D.C.) and the Beinecke Library (Yale).

Teaching and other responsibilities at Undergraduate Level:

At Durham, I am convenor of the Level 1 'Introduction to Drama' module (from 2019 until the end of the 22/23 academic year). I also convene 'Romantic Plays and Players' (Level 2 Seminar Module) and 'Black Lives, pre-1900' (Level 3 Special Topic Module). I lecture for various other modules, and supervise dissertations (at undergraduate, MA, and PhD levels).

I am Staff Chair of the Undergraduate Student-Staff Consultative Committee (SSCC) and Deputy Director of Education. 

PhD Supervision:

Durham offers fantastic resources for research into the literature of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. I warmly welcome inquiries from potential postgraduate research students working on any aspect of English literature from 1660 to 1830, and especially where your own interests touch upon Romantic-period drama, theatre and performance; writing of the Romantic period in relation to its historical contexts; slavery and abolition; private lives (diaries, letters); book history; and the intersection of literature and visual cultures.

At Durham, we work as supervisory teams. I have the pleasure of being co-supervisor to the following PhD students:

• Toby Lucas (Full-time PhD student, 2022 –): ‘The life of Napoleon is the epic of our century’: Reconfigurations of Napoleon in Second-Generation Romantic Poetry.

• Keerthi Vasishta (Full-time PhD student, 2021 –): ‘Wordsworth and Liberty’.

• Sheng (Ariel) Yao (Full-time PhD student, Chinese Government Scholarship, 2019 – ): ‘“A Motion and a Spirit”: William Wordsworth’s, Joanna Baillie’s and Robert Browning’s Dramatic Poetics of Feeling and Passion’.

• Francesco Marchioni (Full-time PhD student, 2019–2023 (Examined January 2023)): ‘Promethean Forms of Grief in the Work of Byron, Shelley and Leopardi’.

Office Hour: Fridays, 11 am - 12 pm (via Zoom)

• Theatre, drama and performance; long eighteenth century; Romanticism; politics; race; visual culture (especially satirical prints); gender

• 2021: : Keynote Address: The London Stage and the Nineteenth-Century World III Conference, University of Oxford, April 2021.
• 2019: : Keynote Address: Humour and Satire in British Romanticism Conference, Durham University, September 2019.
• 2016: : Co-Curator for the Bodleian Library exhibition, Staging History, 1780–1840, University of Oxford. Autumn Public engagements included: an interview for a local TV station, gallery tours and podcast recordings. Podcast recordings available online < https://itunes.apple.com/gb/itunes-u/id1186199697>

Authored book

• Valladares, Susan (2015). Staging the Peninsular War: English Theatres 1807–1815. Abingdon: Routledge.

Book review

• Valladares, Susan (2019). Jonathan Mulrooney. Romanticism and Theatrical Experience: Kean, Hazlitt, and Keats in the Age of Theatrical News. The Review of English Studies 71(300): 587-589.
• Valladares, Susan (2018). William D. Brewer, Staging Romantic Chameleons and Imposters. Romanticism 24(3): 296.
• Valladares, Susan (2016). Frederick Burwick, British Drama of the Industrial Revolution. The Review of English Studies 67(282): 1007.
• Valladares, S. (2015). Julia Swindells and David Francis Taylor (eds), The Oxford Handbook of The Georgian Theatre 1737-1832. The Review of English Studies 66(274): 384.
• Valladares, Susan (2014). David Francis Taylor, Theatres of Opposition: Empire, Revolution & Richard Brinsley Sheridan. Theatre Notebook 68: 64.
• Valladares, Susan (2014). Fiona Ritchie and Peter Sabor (eds), Shakespeare in the Eighteenth Century. Theatre Notebook 68: 62-63.
• Valladares, Susan (2014). David Worrall, Celebrity, Performance, Reception: British Georgian Theatre as Social Assemblage. The Coleridge Bulletin 44: 105-8.
• Valladares, Susan (2011). L. Crisafulli and K. Elam (eds.), Women’s Romantic Theatre and Drama: History, Agency, and Performativity. British Association for Romantic Studies: Bulletin & Review 39: 18-19.
• Valladares, Susan (2011). R. Cole Heinowitz, Spanish America and British Romanticism 1777–1826. Symbiosis: A Journal of Anglo-American Literary Relations (August 2011 Online).

Chapter in book

• Valladares, Susan (2020). Spanish Politicking in British Periodical Reviews, 1808-1814. In Literary Hispanophobia and Hispanophilia in Britain and the Low Countries (1550-1850). Rodríguez Pérez, Yolanda Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. 213-234.
• Valladares, Susan (2018). ‘“All the world’s a stage & all the men are merely players” Theatre-going in London during the Hundred Days’. In Napoleon’s 100 Days and the Struggle for Legitimacy. Astbury, Kate & Philp, Mark Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. 185-208.
• Valladares, Susan (2018). ‘The Changing Theatrical Economy: Charles Dibdin the Younger at Sadler’s Wells, 1814–19’. In Charles Dibdin and Late Georgian Culture. Cox Jensen, Oskar, Kennerley, David & Newman, Ian Oxford: Oxford University Press. 171-188.
• Valladares, Susan (2018). British Women Writers of Peninsular Fiction. In Spain and British Romanticism, 1800-1840. Haywood, Ian & Saglia, Diego Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. 195-213.
• Valladares, Susan (2016). ‘Empire, Revolution and Patriotism in Thomas Morton’s Columbus; Or, A World Discovered (1792)’. In Staging History, 1780–1840. Burden, Michael, Heller, Wendy Hicks, Jonathan & Lockhart, Ellen Bodleian Library Publishing.
• Valladares, Susan (2010). ‘“He that can bring the dead to life again” Resurrecting the Spanish setting of Coleridge’s Osorio (1797) and Remorse (1813)’. In Romanticism and the Anglo-Hispanic Imaginary. Almeida, Joselyn M. Brill Rodopi. 133-156.

Edited Journal

• Valladares, Susan, Haywood, Ian, Oliver, Susan & Sangster, Matthew (2017). The BARS Review. (49): British Association for Romantic Studies.
• Valladares, Susan, Haywood, Ian, Oliver, Susan & Sangster, Matthew (2016). The BARS Review. (47-48): British Association for Romantic Studies.
• Valladares, Susan, Haywood, Ian, Oliver, Susan & Sangster, Matthew (2015). The BARS Review. (45-46): British Association for Romantic Studies.
• Valladares, Susan, Haywood, Ian, Oliver, Susan & Sangster, Matthew (2014). The BARS Review. (44): British Association for Romantic Studies.
• Higgins, David, Valladares, Susan & Sangster, Matthew (2013). BARS Bulletin & Review. (42-43): British Association for Romantic Studies.
• Higgins, David, Valladares, Susan & Sangster, Matthew (2012). BARS Bulletin & Review. (41): British Association for Romantic Studies.

Journal Article

• Valladares, Susan (2022). '"Act[ing] Riotously": Theatre and Performance in Early Nineteenth-Century Jamaica'. Review Of English Studies 73(309): 321-343.
• Valladares, Susan (2019). Afro-Creole Revelry and Rebellion on the British Stage: Jonkanoo in Obi; or, Three-Fingered Jack (1800). The Review of English Studies 70(294): 291-311.
• Valladares, Susan (2013). ‘Teaching Guide to Anne Lister and the Ladies of Llangollen’. Literature Compass 10(11): 869-870.
• Valladares, Susan (2013). ‘“For the sake of illustrating principles” Wordsworth, the Convention of Cintra, and Satirical Prints’. European Romantic Review 24(5): 31-54.
• Valladares, Susan (2013). ‘“An Introduction to the Literary Person[s]” of Anne Lister and the Ladies of Llangollen’. Literature Compass 10(4): 353-368.
• Valladares, Susan (2012). ‘Walter Scott’s Vision of Don Roderick (1811): “A Drum and Trumpet Performance”?’. Cuadernos de Ilustración y Romanticismo 18: 107–126.
• Valladares, Susan (2008). ‘Romantic Englishwomen and “the Theatre of Glory” The Role of the Peninsular War in Forging British National Identity’. Moveable Type: Journal of the Graduate Society, Department of English, University College London (4): 105-120.

Other (Digital/Visual Media)

• Valladares, Susan (2018). 'Resisting Slavery'. Blog.
• Valladares, Susan & Burden, Michael (2017). Staging History: A Curator’s Introduction.
• Valladares, Susan, Burden, Michael & Kennerley, David (2016). Staging History, 1780 to 1840, Oxford University Podcasts (4 episodes). Podcast.
• Valladares, Susan (guest) (2016). 'Staging History in Regency-Era Britain’, That’s TV South Midlands.
• Valladares, Susan (2015). ‘A Tyrant at Covent Garden: 6 April 1815’, 100 Days in 100 Objects online exhibition.
• Valladares, Susan (2015). ‘Five Questions: Susan Valladares on Staging the Peninsular War’. Blog.
• Valladares, Susan (2015). ‘Waterloo’s bicentenary and the Napoleonic Wars in Portugal and Spain – a guest post from Susan Valladares’. Blog.
• Valladares,Susan (2015). ‘A Tyrant at Covent Garden: 6 April 1815.’.