Dr Cato Marks
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100
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Lecturer
Areas of interest
My research interests range from Romantic, Anglophone-Caribbean, to African American literature.
My work in Romanticism focuses on the interface between radical and dissenting culture, and literary texts in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In addition, I explore the ways writers like William Blake respond to and interpret artistically the political legacy of John Milton. I also examine the writings of Hannah More, situating her work within the broader context of loyalist responses to radical thought in the 1790s. I have published academic articles on Blake and More. I am currently working on a chapter on Blake’s The Four Zoas.
In terms of Anglophone Caribbean literature, I examine the ways authors explore the legacy of colourism/shadism through Caribbean Gothic tropes. I have published on the Jamaican author Marlon James.
Other research interests include contemporary fiction. I’m currently working on the African American writer Colson Whitehead; and I work on Black British fiction.
Teaching
I teach a range of modules. These include: ‘Prose: Writing Identities’ (EN1PWI); ‘Poetry in English’ (EN1PE); ‘Contemporary Fiction’ (EN2CF); ‘Enlightenment, Revolution and Romanticism’ (EN2ERR); and ‘Critical Thinking’ (EN2CT). I convene and teach ‘British Black and Asian Voices’ (EN3BAV).
Background
I completed an MPhil in British Romanticism at the University of Oxford, and a PhD at Queen Mary, University of London. My PhD is entitled: ‘Forging a Political Aesthetic: The influence of John Milton’s Political Prose on the Later Prophetic Poems of William Blake’ (2008). Before coming to the University of Reading, I taught at Oxford Brookes University, the University of the West of England (UWE), Middlesex University, the Open University, Kingston University, and Queen Mary (University of London).