About Dr Andrew Lawson
Andrew's background is in the interdisciplinary study of American literature and history, with a particular focus on the history of capitalism in the United States and the formation of the middle class. His first book explores the tensions and ambiguities of Walt Whitman's lower-middle-class identity; a recent study of American realism shows how a literary genre central to middle-class culture emerged as a response to the instabilities of the nineteenth century economy.
Andrew’s first book was Walt Whitman and the Class Struggle (University of Iowa Press, 2006). He has also published Downwardly Mobile: The Changing Fortunes of American Literature (Oxford University Press, 2011), and edited a collection of essays, Class and the Making of American Literature: Created Unequal (Routledge, 2014).
Current Teaching
- Writing America and Modern American Drama (BA English Literature)
- Neoliberal Fictions (MA in Contemporary Literatures)
Research Interests
Andrew's work has contributed to a new awareness of class in American literary and cultural history. He is currently editing a collection of essays by established and emerging scholars on this theme, Class and the Making of American Literature: Created Unequal, to be published by Routledge.
Andrew’s current research project is “Speculating on the Self,” an interdisciplinary study of how a capitalist economy and culture developed in America from the colonial period to the early nineteenth century.
Selected Publications
Books (2)
- Lawson A (2012) Downwardly Mobile: The Changing Fortunes of American Realism. . Oxford University Press, USA.
- Lawson A (2006) Walt Whitman and the class struggle. . University Of Iowa Press.
Chapters (1)
- Lawson A (2011) Twain, Class, and The Gilded Cage. In: Cassuto L The Cambridge History of the American Novel. : Cambridge University Press, pp. 365-379.
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Journal articles (20)
- Lawson A (In press), Smith vs. Wingfield: Remaking the Social Order in the Chesapeake
View Repository Record - Lawson A (In press), Becoming Bourgeois: Benjamin Franklin's Account of the Self
View Repository Record - Lawson A (In press), Improving the Self : Francis Bacon's Essays and the Cultural Logic of Agrarian Capitalism
View Repository Record - Lawson A (2019), Writing a Bill of Exchange: The Perils of Pearl Street, The Adventures of Harry Franco, and the Antebellum Credit System
https://doi.org/10.1017/S0021875819000100
View Repository Record - Lawson A (2013), Foreclosure Stories: Neoliberal Suffering in the Great Recession
https://doi.org/10.1017/S0021875812001326 - Lawson A (2013), An Emotional History of the Business Cycle
https://doi.org/10.1080/17530350.2012.745445 - Lawson A (2012), Moby-Dick and the American empire
https://doi.org/10.1179/1477570011Z.0000000003 - Lawson A (2011), "Perpetual capital": Roderick Hudson, aestheticism, and the problem of inheritance
https://doi.org/10.1353/hjr.2011.0010 - Lawson A (2011), William Faulkner: An Economy of Complex Words
https://doi.org/10.1163/156920611X573851 - Lawson A (2010), Men of Small Property: Harry Franco and Henry Ward Beecher in the Antebellum Market
- Lawson A (2006), "Class and Antebellum American Literature"
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1741-4113.2006.00382.x. - Lawson A (2005), The red badge of class: Stephen Crane and the industrial army
https://doi.org/10.7227/LH.14.2.4 - Lawson A (2004), "'Song of Myself' and the Class Struggle in Language"
https://doi.org/10.1080/09502360410001732917 - Lawson A (2004), "Class Mimicry in Stephen Crane's City"
https://doi.org/10.1093/alh/ajh034. - Lawson A (2003), "'Spending for Vast Returns:' Sex, Class, and Commerce in the First Leaves of Grass"
- Lawson A (1994), "Divisions of Labour: William Carlos Williams's 'The Wanderer' and the Politics of Modernism"
- Lawson A (1992), "History and/or the Abyss: William Carlos Williams's 'Asphodel'"
- Lawson A (1991), "Poetry and Utopia: Geoffrey Hill and Douglas Oliver"
- Lawson A (1990), "Basil Bunting and English Modernism"
- Lawson A (1990), "Farewell to the Avant-Gardes: Some Notes Towards the Definition of a Counter-Culture"
Books (5)
- Lawson A (2014) Class and the making of American literature: Created unequal. . .
https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203556023 - Lawson A (2013) Class and The Making of American Literature: Created Unequal. . London and New York: Routledge.
- Lawson A (2012) Downwardly Mobile: The Changing Fortunes of American Realism. . .
https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199828050.001.0001 - Lawson A (2012) Downwardly Mobile: The Changing Fortunes of American Realism. . Oxford University Press, USA.
- Lawson A (2006) Walt Whitman and the class struggle. . University Of Iowa Press.
Chapters (7)
- Lawson A (2018) "John Smith and the Virus of Trade". In: Chihara M; Seybold M The Routledge Companion to Literature and Economics. : Routledge, pp. .
View Repository Record - O'Neill M; Roberts B; Sparkes AC (2014) Introduction. In: O'Neill M; Roberts B; Sparkes A Advances in biographical methods: Creative applications. London: Routledge, pp. 1-7.
- Lawson A (2014) Contribution to Roundtable: Fredric Jameson's The Antinomies of Realism (London: Verso, 2013).. In: . : Cambridge University Press, pp. .
https://doi.org/10.1017/S0021875814001376 - Lawson A (2011) Twain, Class, and The Gilded Cage. In: Cassuto L The Cambridge History of the American Novel. : Cambridge University Press, pp. 365-379.
- Lawson A (2009) Early Literary Modernism. In: Matthews JT A Companion to the Modern American Novel 1900 - 1950. Cambridge: Wiley-Blackwell, pp. 365-379.
- Lawson A (2003) Helen in Philadelphia: H.D.'s Eugenic Paganism. In: Cuddy LA; Roche C Evolution and Eugenics in American Literature and Culture, 1880-1940: Essays on Ideological Conflict and Complicity. Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press, pp. 220-239.
- Lawson A (1998) Culture and Utility: Phrases in Dispute. In: Jary D; Parker M The New Higher Education: Issues and Directions for the Post-Dearing University. Stoke-on-Trent: Staffordshire University Press, pp. .
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