Joe Morrissey

Joseph Morrissey joined Coventry University in 2015 and currently teaches across the BA in English and BA in English Literature degrees in the School of Humanities. His main area of expertise is in British Romanticism, with specific focuses on women's writing and domesticity. Joe completed his doctorate on the work and leisure activities of genteel, Romantic-period women at the University of Warwick in 2013. During his studies, he held a Chawton House Visiting Fellowship in addition to doctoral scholarships, and transitioned to an Institute of Advanced Studies Early Career Fellowship at Warwick upon completion of his PhD. Before coming to Coventry, he taught literature at the University of Manchester and English for academic purposes at the University of Leeds. 

Joe's monograph, Women's Domestic Activity in the Romantic-Period Novel, 1770-1820 - Dangerous Occupations, was published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2018. This book examines how women's domestic participation shaped their personal and inter-personal experiences. Joe has also published a journal article and book chapter on Charlotte Smith's novel, Ethelinde. These essays discuss how Smith presents women's emotions as a pro-active form of labour in the domestic economy. Currently, Joe is working on Maria Edgeworth's novel, Belinda. He is particularly interested in how the text expresses the experience of romantic love in relation to historically deepening experiences of psychological interiority. Future work will continue the emphasis on changing experiences of emotion by examining empathy as a function of domestic identity in the Romantic-period novel.  

The Romantic-period novel; how the novel relates to changing experiences of self; women's writing; gender; the history of emotions; the gendering of domesticity in the Romantic period; social-scientific approaches to literature.