Dr. Brian Murray

Biography

Brian Murray is a Senior Lecturer in Nineteenth-Century Literature at King's College London. He studied at Trinity College Dublin and Oxford, completing his PhD at King's in 2011. Following this, he was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Cambridge from 2012 to 2015, where he worked on a collaborative interdisciplinary project titled 'The Bible and Antiquity in Nineteenth-Century Culture' with ten other scholars. He returned to King's College London in 2015. His research mainly focuses on Victorian literature and culture, travel writing, and the interplay of literature, music, religion, and the biblical classical past in nineteenth-century Britain and Ireland. His forthcoming monograph investigates how literature and exploration narratives engaged with themes of modernity and progress in the late nineteenth century. His new project examines the persistence of martyrology in literary and visual forms from 1840 to 1918, addressing how Victorians historicized figures of martyrdom. He welcomes PhD applicants interested in these areas and has supervised projects covering various topics in nineteenth-century literature, including women, travel, and Victorian debates. Additionally, he co-founded Bear Yard Press, a historical printing press and research hub at King's, and enjoys giving public talks on literary and architectural history.

Research Interests

Experience