Dr. Lisa Robertson

Biography

Lisa C. Robertson’s research focuses on literature and culture in long nineteenth century Britain. She is particularly interested in literary representation, architecture, and the built environment, especially the ways these aspects inflect questions of politics, history, and identity. Her monograph, Home and Identity in Nineteenth-Century Literary London, published by Edinburgh University Press in 2020, explores new designs of domestic buildings in Britain’s nineteenth-century metropolis and the ways spaces and representations in literature express shifts in individual and collective understandings of gender, sexuality, and class. Additionally, she edited the collection Margaret Harkness: Writing Social Engagement, 1880–1921, which brings together scholarship on Harkness, an author, traveler, and activist. This research culminated in the creation of The Harkives, an open-access digital archive of resources related to Margaret Harkness, aimed at encouraging research into her life and work. Robertson has published articles in various journals such as Women’s History Review and the Princeton University Library Chronicle. Her current research project explores the prophetic mode in nineteenth-century prose, paying particular attention to how it renders tensions between progressive and pessimistic visions of the future. For the past ten years, she has served on the Committee of the Literary London Society as Secretary. She welcomes inquiries from potential graduate students interested in literature and culture of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Britain, particularly as it relates to themes of space, place, gender, and sexuality.

Research Interests

Experience