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    • Research at UC

Dr Nicholas Joshua Thomas Wright

Contact

Department: School of Humanities and Creative Arts ; English

Email: nicholas.wright@canterbury.ac.nz

Direct Dial: +64 3 3694545

Office: Karl Popper 617

Language: English

About
Research / Creative works
Supervision
Networks
Projects
Methods & Equipment

Fields of Research

  • New Zealand literature
  • American literature
  • Postmodern fiction
  • The twentieth-century novel
  • Poetry and poetics
  • Romanticism

Researcher Summary

My M.A. thesis examined the novels of Damien Wilkins, and sought to place him within the context of international trends in poststructuralist and postmodern thought. An extract from this thesis was published as a chapter in Floating Worlds. Since then I have published articles on poets such as Tusiata Avia, James Brown, John Newton and Bill Manhire, and a book chapter on James K. Baxter.  The major theme of my continuing research remains the influence of the literary-theoretical problem of romanticism in the context of contemporary New Zealand literature—specifically, literature written after 1984 and in the era of so-called late capitalism and neo-liberalism. The book chapter (Quarrels with Himself, 2017) on James K. Baxter’s criticism of poetry seeks to seed this analysis in a progenitor figure; while my essay on Carl Shuker’s novel Anti Lebanon  draws attention to romanticism as a problem interconnected with the force of neo-colonial globalisation. My current book project is a collection of essays on a selection of New Zealand poems published after 1984, modelled on Steph Burt’s successful The Poem is You (2016), to be titled Stepping Out the Distance. My other major area of research is twentieth-century and contemporary American fiction. I intend to update and convert my dissertation (Tendering the Impossible: The Work of Irony in the Late Novels of Don DeLillo) into a monograph on Don DeLillo. The book will develop readings I've made of DeLillo's novels that point to the emergence of a philosophy of language, and from this, a philosophy of literature within the context of late capitalism.

Subject Area: Disciplines

  • American Studies: American Studies
  • Cultural Studies: Popular Culture
  • Literature: New Zealand; Post-Colonial
  • Pasifika: Pasifika
  • Philosophy: Continental Philosophy
  • Region: Australasia; North America; Pacific

Resources

  • Staff webpage

Research/Scholarly/Creative Works

  • Wright N. (2017) The Incarnational formalist: The Known Habits of Association in Baxter's Criticism of Poetry. In Whiteford P; Miles G (Ed.), Quarrels with Himself: Essays on James K. Baxter as Prose Writer: 137-163. Wellington: Victoria University Press. (Chapters)
  • Wright NJT. (2017) Baxter's Body of Criticism. New Zealand Studies Seminar Series. (Oral Presentations)
  • Wright NJT. (2017) Feminism and William Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing. Guest Lecture, Geraldine High School. (Oral Presentations)
  • Wright NJT. (2017) Janet Frame's 'You Are Know Entering the Human Heart' and the tradition of the Short Story. Ellesmere College: Guest Lecture. (Oral Presentations)
  • Wright NJT. (2017) Michel Foucault and Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale. Guest lecture, Geraldine High School. (Oral Presentations)
  • Wright NJT. (2017) On Looking Back. Victoria University Press Book Launch for Salt Picnic by Patrick Evans. (Oral Presentations)
  • Wright NJT. (2017) Postcolonialism and Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness. Guest lecture, Shirley Boys High School. (Oral Presentations)
  • Wright NJT. (2017) Surveillance, Power, and Femininity in Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale. Hagley High School: Guest Lecture, Hagley High School. (Oral Presentations)
  • Wright NJT. (2017) Transitioning from High School to University English. Cashmere High School English Teachers' Professional Development Day. (Oral Presentations)
  • Wright NJT. (2017) Introduction to First-year University English at UC. Haeata Community College: CETA Big Day Out, 1 Dec 2017. (Conference Contributions - Other)
  • Wright N. (2016) Taking the Tour: The Romantic Ruins of Carl Shuker's Anti Lebanon. University of Canterbury: New Zealand Studies Seminar Series. (Oral Presentations)
  • Wright NJT. (2016) Taking the Tour: The Romantic Ruins of Carl Shuker's Anti Lebanon. Journal of Commonwealth Literature Online First: 16. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0021989416682790. (Journal Articles)
  • Wright NJT. (2016) Traversing 'The Same River': John Newton's Unforbidden Romanticism. Journal of New Zealand Literature 34(1): 123-142. (Journal Articles)
  • Wright N. (2015) The Unforbidden Romanticism of John Newton's 'The Same River'. University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand: Canterbury School of Continental Philosophy Seminar Series. (Oral Presentations)
  • Wright N. (2015) Preparing for University English: A Colloquy. Christchurch, New Zealand: Canterbury English Teachers Association Conference, 23-23 Nov 2015. (Conference Contributions - Other)
  • Wright N. (2014) The Disenchanted Romanticism of James Brown. Journal of New Zealand Literature 32(1): 119-140. (Journal Articles)
  • Wright NJT. (2014) Scholarship Students Seminar, section A - Close Reading of Unfamiliar Texts. University of Canterbury, Christchurch: Canterbury High Schools English Scholarship Exam Seminars. (Oral Presentations)
  • Wright NJT. (2014) What's so great about The Great Gatsby?'. University of Canterbury, Christchurch: Arts Taster. (Oral Presentations)
  • Wright NJT. (2014) The Paradoxes of Knowledge and Knowing. Dinah Hawken, page.stone.leaf. Auckland: The Holloway Press, 2014; 42pp. Elizabeth Smither, Ruby Duby Du. Lyttelton: Cold Hub Press, 2013; 44pp. Caoilinn Hughes, Gathering Evidence. Wellington: Victoria University Press, 2014; 60pp. New Zealand Books 24 no 3(107): 10-11. [Book Review]. (Other)
  • Wright N. (2013) Group-work learning in the literature classroom. University of Canterbury: Teaching Week - Designing Blended Learning. (Oral Presentations)
  • Wright N. and Bedggood D. (2013) Scholarship Students Seminar: Section B - The Novel and the Dystopian Text. University of Canterbury: Canterbury High Schools English Scholarship Exam Seminars. (Oral Presentations)
  • Wright N. and Millar P. (2013) Scholarship Students Seminar: Section A - Close Reading Unfamiliar Texts. University of Canterbury: Canterbury High Schools English Scholarship Exam Seminars. (Oral Presentations)
  • Wright NJT. (2011) The Disenchanted Romanticism of James Brown. University of Canterbury. (Oral Presentations)
  • Wright NJT. (2011) The Task of the Tusitala: Tusiata Avia's Wild Dogs Under My Skirt. The Journal of Commonwealth Literature 46(2): 219-236. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0021989411404989. (Journal Articles)
  • Wright NJT. (2009) Tenderness and Postmodernism: Damien Wilkins' The Miserables. In Jackson A; Stafford J (Ed.), Floating Worlds: Essays on Contemporary New Zealand Fiction: 23-36. Wellington: Victoria University Press. (Chapters)
  • Wright NJT. (2008) Organising Loneliness' in Don DeLillo's Underworld. University of Canterbury, New Zealand: School of Culture, Literature & Society Seminar Series. (Oral Presentations)
  • Wright NJT. (2008) Review of Justin Clemens, 'The Romanticism of Contemporary Theory: Institution, Aesthetics, Nihilism'. The BARS Bulletin and Review 32: 26-28. (Other)
  • Wright NJT. (2008) The Task of the Tusitala: Tusiata Avia's 'Wild Dogs Under My Skirt'. Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand: Flogging a Dead Horse: Are National Literatures Finished?, 11-13 Dec 2008. (Conference Contributions - Other)
  • Wright NJT. (2006) Tendering the Impossible: The Work of Irony in the Late Novels of Don DeLillo. Christchurch, New Zealand. University of Canterbury. (Theses / Dissertations)

Student Supervision

Displaying all items.
    Current
  • PhD - Byrnes S: Magic(al) Materialisms: Magic(al) Realism as Mode
  • PhD - Claridge LA: T.B.A
  • PhD - Doole S: Curating the ‘Womb-Space’: The Maternal Aesthetics of Displacement in Contemporary Poetry.
  • PhD - Hudson R: Time and Space in the late novels of Don DeLillo (provisional title)
  • PhD - Jackson K: Intersectionalism and the Southern Gothic Novel (provisional title)
  • PhD - Kennedy K: Challenging the Norm: Gender in Frank Herbert's Dune Series
  • PhD - Reade I: Hanif Kureishi and the Postcolonial Body
  • PhD - Rendell C: The Individual in the Late Capitalist Novel (provisional title)
  • PhD - Rowe T: 'You Will Know When You Get There': The Poetics of Place in the Poetry of Allen Curnow
  • Masters - Rowe T: ‘Coming to Terms with the Disenchantment of the World: Strategies of Compensation in Modernist Poetry’
  • Masters - Hadaway T: Between Capitalism and Grace: The Work of Satire and Narrative Empathy in the Fiction of George Saunders
  • Masters - Hoskins P: Women Alone: Feminine Solitude in Mansfield, Sturm and Frame
  • Masters - McCarthy A: T.B.A
  • Masters - Penaia N: Bridging the Void: An MWRIT680 creative writing submission
  • Honours - Hoskins P: Bodies of Water: displacement in the short stories of Mansfield and Frame
  • Honours - Scott C: The Antarctic Anthropocene through Poetry
  • Completed
  • PhD - Nazari H: De/Constructing the Iranian Other: Captivity, Neo-Orientalism and resistance in Three Paradigmatic American Memoirs
  • Masters - Boyle C: Nature Nationalism: The New Zealand Wilderness Myth and Pakeha Identity in the South Island (2016)
  • Masters - Ellis O: "The much wished-for shore" : nationalism and utopianism in New Zealand literature : 1817-1973 (2013)
  • Masters - Howard N: Irrational Paratext: Manipulated Paratext in the Gothic Postmodern novels House of Leaves, The Adventuress, and The three incestuous sisters (2014)
  • Masters - Nash R: Talking Sense: Sensory Communication in Samuel Beckett’s The Unnamable, Film, and Quadrat I and II (2014)
  • Masters - Nielsen H: The Wide White Stage (2013)
  • Masters - Thind R: The Struggles of Remembrance: Christianity and Revenge in William Shakespeare’s Hamlet. (2014)
  • Honours - Carpenter C: Witi Ihimaera’s Whanau (1974) and its highly political and culturally imaginative recreation in Whanau II (2004) (2012)
  • Honours - Clark C: Beyond the Edge: Hunter S. Thompson's American Dream (2013)
  • Honours - Doole S: A Slender Attitude: Reassembling the Feminine in the Poetry of Wilfred Owen
  • Honours - Dunn S: ‘La Nouvelle Cythere” Postmodernism in Diderot’s Construction of Nature Versus Culture’ (2012)
  • Honours - Elley B: The Blue God Rises: The sacred after modernity in A Scanner Darkly (2012)
  • Honours - Fone J: God and Fantasy Spirituality and Authorial Intentions in The Last Battle, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and The Amber Spyglass (2013)
  • Honours - Hadaway T: 'This Book is Really True': Sincerity as a Postmodern Religious Experience in David Foster Wallace's The Pale King (2016)
  • Honours - Harbison-Price A: Panem et Circenses Satire and consumption in Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games trilogy (2014)
  • Honours - Howard N: ‘We Would Have Been Safe’: Metamodernism in Jonathan Safran Foer’s Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (2012)
  • Honours - Jones J: ENGL 442 (2014)
  • Honours - McLaughlin N: The Paradox of the Child and Adolesent Narrator: Innocence, Corruption, Conventionalism and Misogyny in New Zealand Literature. (2014)
  • Honours - Morrison J: Ophelia's Self-fashioning: The Poetry of Elizabeth Siddal (2017)
  • Honours - Rowe T: The Catachrestic Sublime: Revisiting the Opacities of Three of Hart Crane’s Whiter Buildings. (2013)

Review and Refereeing

Displaying all items.
  • Axon Journal ( 2015 - 2021)
  • Journal of Commonwealth Literature ( 2014 - 2021)
  • Journal of New Zealand Studies ( 2012 - 2021)

Future Research

  • Stepping Out the Distance: Essays on Contemporary Aotearoa Poetry
  • Romantic Neo liberalism and New Zealand literature
  • An essay on Don DeLillo's Falling Man
  • A book of collected essays on the influence of American culture on New Zealand literature
  • An essay on Janet Frame's Daughter Buffalo

Key Methodologies

  • Literary-critical analysis
  • Postcolonialism
  • Deconstruction
  • Poststructuralism
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