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Dr David Cooper

Formerly at Lancaster University

David Cooper

Research Interests

David's work focuses on critical literary geographies: the ways in which creative writers (primarily poets) think geographically; and the ways in which contemporary theoretical thinking on space, place and landscape can inform critical practices. His work in literary geographies is situated in three, frequently intersecting, fields of interest: post-war/contemporary British and Irish poetry; Romantic landscape aesthetics and spatial practices; and the use of digital technologies (particularly GIS) to map out topographical texts. To date, much of his work has used the multi-layered cultural history of the Lake District as ground on which to test out theoretical ideas and interdisciplinary approaches.

Professional Role

David is currently Senior Research Associate on 'Spatial Humanities: Texts, GIS, Places': a major interdisciplinary project funded by the European Research Council and based within the Department of History. The project, which is led by Professor Ian Gregory, serves as a flagship programme for innovative Digital Humanities research at Lancaster.

Current Teaching

David's has taught widely at both under- and post-graduate levels. His previous posts include Lecturer in English Literature at the University of Cumbria and Senior Teaching Associate/Co-Director of Part I Studies in the Department of English & Creative Writing at Lancaster University. In addition, he has taught at the University of Salford. He has a Certificate in Academic Practice (Lancaster University, 2011) and is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.

Additional Information

Forthcoming & Recent Publications

Lake District Literary Geographies: Mapping the Post-Romantic Spatial Imagination (monograph contracted to Liverpool University Press)

'Poetic Geographies’ (with Neal Alexander, School of English, University of Nottingham). Introduction to Poetry & Geography: Space, Place & Post-War Poetry, ed. by Neal Alexander & David Cooper (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2013).

‘Envisioning “the Cubist Fells”: Ways of Seeing in the Poetry of Norman Nicholson’, in Poetry & Geography: Space, Place & Post-War Poetry, ed. by Neal Alexander and David Cooper (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2013).

‘Literary Cartography: Texts, Maps and a Coleridgean Notebook’, in Mapping Culture(s): Place, Practice and Performance, ed. by Les Roberts (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012).

‘Walking, Witnessing, Mapping: An Interview with Iain Sinclair’ (with Les Roberts, School of Architecture, University of Liverpool), in Mapping Culture(s): Place, Practice and Performance, ed. by Les Roberts (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012).

‘“The Post-Industrial Picturesque”?: Placing and Promoting Marginalized Millom’, in The Making of a Cultural Landscape: The Lake District as Tourist Destination, 1750-2010, ed. by John K. Walton and Jason Wood (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2012).

'The Processual Intertextuality of Literary Cartographies: Critical and Digital Practices' (with Gary Priestnall, School of Geography, University of Nottingham), Cartographic Journal, 48 (2011), 250-62.

‘Mapping the English Lake District: A Literary GIS’ (with Ian N. Gregory, Digital Humanities, Lancaster University), Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 36 (2011), 89-108. This article was republished in August 2011 in ‘The Geographical Imagination’: a special ‘virtual issue’ of Transactions, edited by Stephen Daniels, featuring thirteen ‘landmark papers’ published in the journal between 1955 and 2011.

‘GIS, Texts & Images: New Approaches’ (with Ian N. Gregory), The Poetess Archive Journal, 2 (2010).

‘Thomas Gray, Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Geographical Information Systems: A Literary GIS of Two Lake District Tours’ (with Ian N. Gregory), International Journal of Humanities and Arts Computing, 3 (2009), 61-84.

‘“Matter Matters”: Topographical and Theological Space in the Poetry of Norman Nicholson’, Yearbook of English Studies, 39 (2009), 169-85.

‘The Poetics of Place and Space: Wordsworth, Nicholson and the Lake District’, Literature Compass, 5 (2008), 807-21.

‘Planning Live Events’, Living Writers in the Curriculum: A Good Practice Guide, ed. by Vicki Bertram and Andrew Maunder (London: The English Subject Centre, 2005), 16-20.

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