Professor Robert Burroughs

Robert Burroughs is Professor and Head of English at Leeds Beckett University, UK. He is a cultural historian and literary critic working on the nineteenth century. He specializes in the areas of empire, humanitarianism, slavery, race, and Black British history. He has also published widely research on travel and tourism, particularly in marine environments.

An expert on King Leopold II's Congo Free State, in 2022, Rob served as an expert witness in the Belgian Parliament's Special Commission on the colonial past.

For 2024, Rob is Linda H. Peterson Fellow of the Research Society for Victorian Periodicals, undertaking a project titled 'S.J. Celestine Edwards, the "Black Champion" of Victorian Oral and Print Culture'.

Rob's books include Travel Writing and Atrocities (Routledge 2011, 2015), The Suppression of the Atlantic Slave Trade (co-edited, Manchester UP 2015, 2017), African Testimony in the Movement for Congo Reform (Routledge 2018), and Black Students in Imperial Britain (Liverpool UP, 2022- available freely)

Rob's articles have appeared in leading journals including Victorian Literature and Culture, Journal of Victorian Culture, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, Slavery & Abolition, and Postcolonial Studies.

Rob is a recipient of funding from the AHRC, The Leverhulme Trust (Early Career Fellowship, 2007-09, and Research Fellow 2019-20), the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (2014-17), and the Research Society for Victorian Periodicals (2024).

• Short stories
• Black British Culture
• Theory into Practice
• Atlantic Slavery