Dr Paul Wright BA, MA, PhD, FHEA

As well as being Head of School, I’m Course Director for the BA in English and the International Foundation programme.

I have a First Class Hons. Degree in English Language and Literature (Hull 1989); an MA in Romanticism (York 1990); and a PhD on (British) Romanticism  (Hull 1995).

I taught English Literature and Creative Writing at Trinity College Carmarthen, later Trinity University College and now part of University of Wales, Trinity Saint David, from 1994.

I was appointed Head of School for the School of Creative Arts and Humanities in 2005 and Head of the School of Cultural Studies in 2010. As HoS I am currently responsible for the overall management of a School which offers undergraduate degrees in English, Creative Writing, Philosophy and Chinese Studies, Joint Hons.

Combinations of those subjects, and MA degrees in Philosophy and Creative Writing. In this role I manage HEFCW derived and income generation (third mission) budgets, HR and related issues, and lead on curriculum development, including areas such as TEL, across the subject provision, as well as leading on the delivery of  a range of English and Creative Writing modules at undergraduate and postgraduate level. 

I have played a full role in key institutional level activity at TSD, including QAA Institutional Audit, IIP and Management Planning Away Days; and in the creation of key documents, for example, the Faculty Strategic Plan, T+L Strategy, Draft IP Policy Document.

I have also led on the School’s involvement in Institutional level QE activity, including working with Carmarthen Festivals, the Carmarthen Arts Forum, Carmarthenshire Theatres, iCreu, and the Trinity festival and ffrinj. I have developed links with external bodies such as Parthian Books, Arts Care, Carmarthenshire Theatres.

I have been involved in a number of income generation activities for example:

2003-4: I collaborated with the travel writer John Harrison on an AHRB/Academi funded project exploring the connections between creative writing practice and the techniques of travel writing. (£10,000) 

2007-8: I was the lead academic on a KEF project total value c.£64,000 exploring the use of video and other technologies in   community-based projects and developing an MA in Creative Arts.

2009: I am a lead academic on the ‘Coracle’ Interreg (Territorial) bid (total value €1.6 m) having written two work packages linked to development of MBA Arts Management and Creative Writing.

I have secured funding for the MA Creative Writing Anthology from a number of bodies over the past 10 years. Funding for 2009-10 is a level 3 Dynamo bid (£7,500). 

2011: DIP initiative in collaboration with Swansea University. I have secured £1,500 to support cross institutional creative writing activity. 

I am actively involved in the School’s commitment to Widening Access, Taster Days, AUR and similar initiatives and to its development of funded QE opportunities for students eg Go-Wales placements. I have also delivered CPD programmes and contributed to summer school activity.

• Higher Education Academy
• National Assoc. of Writers in Education
• British Assoc of Romantic Studies
• Acaedemi

I teach on a wide range of creative writing modules, including modules on writing poetry and prose and writing workshops, I also contribute to other degree programmes within the school. In recent years I have taught in the following areas: the Eighteenth Century; Romanticism Contemporary Literature; and, Science Fiction.

I have supervised postgraduate work in creative writing and in areas related to my research interests. I am currently supervising research degrees on Jane Austen and the Psycho-Geography and Creative Writing. 

My research has largely been concerned with Romanticism and aspects of contemporary poetry.

In 1995 I was awarded a PhD by the University of Hull for research on ‘Keats and the Aesthetics of Seizure’; my thesis reconsidered Keats’ poetry and thought in the light of contemporaneous aesthetic theories and the wider impact of the empirical method at the turn of the 19th century, particularly in the medical world in which the young Keats moved. I have published on Milton, Keats, Byron, Wordsworth, Wilde, Shaw, the sublime, contemporary poetry and the graphic novel.

In 2001 I completed work on a fully annotated edition of Keats’ poetry, with an 8,000-word critical introduction for Wordsworth Classics. In 2005 I completed a similar edition of the selected works of Byron. I am currently researching into and writing on contemporary poetry from New Zealand and on the interface between 19th Century poetry and science.

I also review regularly for a number of publications including Nineteenth Century Contexts, NAWE, Gwales, BRONZS, and BARS: Bulletin. I have attended a number of conferences in institutions throughout Britain and presented papers that reflect my research interests and I have worked as a reader for the University of Wales Press and the Welsh Books Council.

• My research interests have centred on the Romantic poet John Keats and British Romanticism more broadly; its links to (medical) science and (post)-Romantic Philosophy.
• I have published on Keats, Byron, Wordsworth, Milton, Shaw, the sublime, the graphic novel.
• I have undertaken editorial work and have experience of writing funding bids in a number of educationally related contexts.

I have worked as a reader for the Books Council and University of Wales Press.

• The Poems of John Keats (Wordsworth Classics, 2001)
• Don Juan and Other Poems (Wordsworth Classics, 2005)
• 'Vile Saxons and Ancient Britons: Wordsworth, the ambivalent Welsh tourist' in Dangerous Diversity ed. Gramich & Hiscock (UWP 1998).
• 'Longinus' and 'Milton as Translator' in Literary Translation ed. Olive Classe (Fitzroy Dearborn 2000).
• ‘Oscar Wilde’ and ‘George Bernard Shaw’ in Literary Modernism ed. Paul Poplawski (Greenwood 2002).
• 'From Kbblamm to Splat: The Graphic Novel' Books in Wales 3/96
• ‘The Greediest Eye and Fondling Nips: Keats, Worsdworth and the Clinician’s gaze and touch’ in Romanticism and Victorinism on the Net  (2008)

As editor:

• True Colours: A Collection of New Writing (Accent Press, 2004)
• Wicked Words: An Anthology (Accent, 2005)
• A Haunting Touch (Parthian, 2007)