Dr Paul Stephens
Dr Paul Stephens is an AHRC Postdoctoral Research Fellow (Humanities Division) and a Junior Dean at Lincoln College, Oxford. His current research explores the connections between literature and finance during the long eighteenth century (c.1680-1830). His DPhil thesis, support by an AHRC-Sloane Robinson Foundation Studentship, examined the poetry and prose of Percy Bysshe Shelley through the lens of economic philosophy. He is preparing his first monograph - provisionally entitled Shelley and the Economic Imagination - which connects the poet's economic ideas (on equality, value, growth, and debt) with his theory of the creative imagination. Before completing his doctorate, he was educated at local state schools and spent several years as a member of the finance team for Iron Maiden.
Recent Publications:
Stephens, P., 'Queen Mab and the Origins of Economic Value', Romanticism. Forthcoming.
Stephens, P., 'Review: Keats and Shelley: Winds of Light’, Romanticism. Forthcoming.
Stephens, P., 'Shelley and Economics', Percy Shelley in Context, ed. Ross Wilson (CUP). Forthcoming.
Stephens, P., 'Percy Bysshe Shelley's Ethics of Debt', The Review of English Studies, 71:298 (2020), 117-39.
Stephens, P., 'Review: Percy Bysshe Shelley: Poet and Revolutionary', The Keats-Shelley Review, 33:1 (2019), 134-36.
Stephens, P., 'Coleridge and the National Debt', European Journal of English Studies, 21:1 (2017), 26-42.
Recent Teaching:
Autonomously devised and delivered the following undergraduate courses (composed of classes and/or tutorials):
- 'British Romanticism and the Natural World'. Department for Continuing Education, Oxford (Forthcoming)
- 'Identity in Victorian Shorter Fiction'. Department for Continuing Education, Oxford (Forthcoming)
- 'FHS I, Paper 5 (Literature in English 1760-1830)'. Lincoln College, Oxford (Co-Tutored, Trinity 2022)
- 'FHS I, Paper 5 (Literature in English 1760-1830)'. Oriel College, Oxford (Trinity 2020)
- 'John Keats: His Life and Thought'. Department for Continuing Education, Oxford (Trinity 2020)
- 'British Romanticism'. Department for Continuing Education, Oxford (Hilary 2020)
- 'Introduction to British Romanticism'. Advanced Studies in England, Bath (Michaelmas 2018)
Fellowships:
- Huntington Library, California. Visiting Fellowship (2020)
Other Current Roles (Selected):
- Junior Dean: Lincoln College, Oxford
- Trustee and Treasurer: The Charles Lamb Society
- Trustee and Treasurer: British Society for Eighteenth Century Studies
- Finance Manager: Uncomfortable Oxford Ltd.
