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Mr Jonathan Perris

Jonathan studied Philosophy as an undergraduate before working for a number of years as an Editor at Oxford University Press. He then undertook an interdisciplinary MSt in English Literature and History at Kellogg College before beginning his DPhil at Lady Margaret Hall and then moving to Oriel.

Research Interests

Jonathan’s research broadly sits across the literature and cultural history of the long eighteenth century and early Victorian period. He is particularly focused on British nationalism and imperialism, aesthetics, political discourse and satire, travel writing, radical culture, and the British Empire and slave trade. He also has an abiding interest in the relationship between literary and cultural theory.  His doctoral thesis, entitled Romantic Nationalism and the Metaphor of Infectious Disease, examines representations of national contamination across the Romantic period within a context of rapidly changing medico-literary understandings of human physiology, epidemiology, sensibility, associationism, and sensationalism. Providing a literary, cultural and intellectual history of these representations, the thesis explores the emergence of Romantic nationalism alongside a number of cultural motifs, particularly within the sensational metropolitan culture of London.

Undergraduate teaching

At Oriel, Jonathan teaches literature in English from 1700 to 1850, offering classes and tutorials for Paper 4 (1660–1760), Paper 5 (1760–1830), and Prelims 3 (1830–1910).

Select publications

  • Jonathan Perris (2025), ‘“THUGGEE IN LONDON!”: Metropolitan Sensationalism and the Invention of the Thug,’ (Victorian Literature and Culture, forthcoming). 
  •  Jonathan Perris (2025), ‘The Pathology of Burke’s “Two Great Evils”,’ (BSECS International Conference – winner of a BSECS Bursary Award). 
  • Jonathan Perris (2023), ‘God Lives in the Sun: The Critique of Evangelical Abolitionism in William Blake’s “The Little Black Boy”,’ European Romantic Review, 34:6, 629-645, DOI: 10.1080/10509585.2023.2272890 
  • Jonathan Perris (2019), ‘Whirlwinds of Empire: Subversion and the Gothic in William Blake’s The Spiritual Form of Pitt Guiding Behemoth,’ Vides, 225-238.