Dr. Dahlia Porter

Biography

Dahlia Porter joined the Department of English Literature at the University of Glasgow in 2017. A native of Buffalo, NY, she earned her BA from New York University, an M.A. from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and a Ph.D. in English Literature from the University of Pennsylvania. Before joining Glasgow, she taught Eighteenth-century Romantic literature at Vanderbilt University and the University of North Texas. Porter’s research focuses on the organization of knowledge in literary forms from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, particularly examining how the formal mixtures of British Romantic literature arise from authors' application of inductive methods derived from experimental science. Her forthcoming book, "Science, Form, and the Problem of Induction in British Romanticism," argues that the compositional method Romantic authors adopted was influenced by the information saturation of their time and that they embraced writing techniques to navigate this challenge. Currently, she is working on a monograph titled "Poetics of Inventory," which investigates the cultural and epistemological power of catalogues and inventories between 1750-1850, analyzing how these utilitarian forms of writing function in the context of scientific, aesthetic, and literary thought practices. Porter has organized several conferences and symposiums, contributing significantly to the fields of literature and science, and has published articles in various prestigious journals. She has received numerous fellowships and grants to support her research.

Research Interests