Ben Wilkinson-Turnbull

I am a Stipendiary Lecturer in English at Trinity and Regent’s Park College. 

At Trinity, I teach FHS Papers 1 (Shakespeare) and 3 (Literature in English, 1550-1660). 

At a collegiate level, I have taught widely on literature written between 1550 and 1830, having taught Papers 1 (Shakespeare), 3 (1550-1660),4 (1660-1760), and 5 (1760-1830), Prelims 1 (Introduction to Language and Literature). I have also taught at a faculty level as a graduate teaching assistant on 'Paper 6: Language, Persuasion, People, Things'. I have supervised a number of undergraduate dissertations, including topics on early modern book history, queerness in eighteenth century literature, Restoration utopias, early modern disabilities, HIV/AIDS literature, and contemporary women's writing, and welcome enquires from potential supervisees. 

I am also passionate about improving access to higher education. I have a personal and professional passion for ensuring that marginalised communities have fair and inclusive access to studying and working at Oxford. Prior to studying at Oxford for my degrees, I attended a state school in Leeds. I am a proud working class, northern, queer, disabled, first generation academic. I have worked extensively on college access programs. For two years I taught on LMH's ground-breaking foundation year and the Department for Continuing Education’s Undergraduate Certificate in English. Alongside my work at Trinity, I am also a tutor in English at the Department for Continuing Education on Oxford's flagship Astrophoria Foundation Year. 

My research focuses on women’s writing, book history, textual editing, politics, and material culture from c.1550-1830. These are explored at length in my DPhil thesis, “The Materiality of Women’s Texts, 1580-1760: Production, Transmission, and Reception”, which argues that the gendered politics of print and manuscript publication meant that other media were often more sympathetic to women’s writing. My first article, shortlisted for the Review of English Studies Essay Prize and in the top 4% of the journal's outputs, explored developing concepts of plagiarism by reconsidering the critical treatment of one of the first printed female-authored volumes of essays in English: Grace, Lady Gethin’s Reliquiæ Gethinianæ (1699). The second, published in Women’s Writing, considers how Isabella Whitney, the first women to publish a volume of poems in English under her own name, enjoyed a surprisingly long reception history in the long eighteenth century; raising questions of how gender contributed to an author’s desirability, economic value, and ultimate survival. Other recent publications include entries for The Palgrave Encyclopaedia of Early Modern Women’s Writing, of which I am also a section editor, and a chapter in Swift in Context (CUP 2024) that rethinks Swift’s relationship with Esther Johnson, Maria Edgeworth, and contemporary women’s writers.  

I am also deeply interested in scholarly editing. With Christine Gerrard and Corrina Readioff, I am concluding a landmark Cambridge edition of Swift’s later political prose. A complimentary article, which considers a vital yet previously unknown Swiftian source in Cambridge University Library and was nominated for a conference prize by the British Society of Eighteenth Century Studies, is also underway. I have recently been invited to contribute to the first complete edition of Margaret Cavendish’s works. As a co-editor of Physical and Philosophical Opinions (1663) I will produce a collaborative interdisciplinary edition of her philosophical and medical treatises, to which Oxford’s vast collection of her works is central. Through my work as a research associate at UCL on the AHRC-funded ‘Shaping Scholarship: Early Donors to the Bodleian Library’, I am the co-author of a database of early donations to the Bodleian Library.

I am also passionate about disseminating my research through public engagement work. I have spoken about my research on BBC radio, and have produced taster talks, archival open days, outreach summer schools, exhibitions, family days, blog posts, and training sessions for tour guides. For a recent example, produced in conjunction with my curation work on the major exhibition “Gifts and Books”, take a look at my blog post on Early Women Donors, Colonialism, and Early Chinese Books in The Bodleian Conveyor. 

Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles 

• ‘The Reading, Reception, and Collecting of Isabella Whitney’s A Sweet Nosegay, c.1573-1871’, Women’s Writing 31:1 (2024), pp.101-24. 
• ‘Originality, Plagiarism, and Posthumous Publication: Grace Gethin’s Reliquiæ Gethinianæ (1699)’ Review of English Studies 72:304 (2021), pp.301-20.

 Book Chapters

• ‘Swift and Women Writers’ in Jonathan Swift in Context, eds. Pat Rogers & Joseph Hone (CUP, 2024), pp.108-115.
• ‘Epitaphs’ in The Palgrave Encyclopaedia of Early Modern Women’s Writing: Poetry (Palgrave, 2024).
• ‘Elizabeth Freke’ in The Palgrave Encyclopaedia of Early Modern Women’s Writing (Palgrave, 2024). 
• ‘Grace Gethin’ in The Palgrave Encyclopaedia of Early Modern Women’s Writing (Palgrave, 2022).

 Digital Resources 

• Early Donations to the Bodleian Online. With Robyn Adams, Matthew Symonds, and Anna-Lujz Gilbert. https://ebdo.org.uk/

Creative Writing (Poetry) 

• ‘Office Compline’, The North 68 (2022). Guest edited by Andrew McMillan & Stephanie Sy-Quia.