Dr. Janet Floyd

Biography

Professor Janet Floyd taught nineteenth-century American Literature and Culture at King’s College from 2002 to 2023, first in the Department of American Studies and then in the Department of English from 2010. She has a particular interest in students’ experiences as they transition from school to university, setting up the project 'Reading Further' to help school students learn to enjoy literary study at the university level. Her research interests include Nineteenth-century American Culture, the American West, domesticity, and the networks of artists and writers. Professor Floyd's monograph 'Writing Pioneer Woman' (2002) engaged with the debates surrounding the iconic figure of the female pioneer in North America. Her subsequent monograph, 'Claims and Speculations: Mining Writing in the Gilded Age' (University of New Mexico Press, 2012), analyzed the literature generated by the great gold and silver strikes of the late 19th century. Additionally, her work has produced several collections of essays and edited volumes, such as 'Domestic Space: Reading Nineteenth-Century Interior' (1999) and 'Becoming Visible: Women’s Cultural Presence in Nineteenth-Century America' (2010). Currently, she is finalizing a monograph on the networks that developed among American artists and writers during the 1870s and 1880s.

Research Interests