Tristanne Connolly

I’m originally from Hamilton, and I did my BA and MA at McMaster, majoring in English with a minor concentration in Religious Studies for both degrees. As an undergraduate I fell in love with medieval literature, especially Old English, and had already long been more than half in love with Romantic poetry, so I decided to do one graduate degree on each. My MA thesis was on medieval dream visions, and I pursued my PhD in British Romantic literature at King's College, Cambridge, where I was an acolyte in the beautiful Gothic chapel. I wrote my dissertation on William Blake’s central image, “the human form divine”.

I came to St Jerome’s University in 2004, after being Assistant Professor at Butler University in Indiana, and before that, Instructor at Auburn University in Alabama. At those universities, I taught both composition and literature courses, and enjoyed the opportunity to include a broad range of texts, from the Vedas to The Getaway. At St. Jerome’s University the courses I teach include English Literatures 1 and 2, The Age of Beowulf, Literature of the Romantic Period, the Jane Austen course, and a graduate course on Blake. I supervise graduate students working on Romantic-era texts and gender and sexuality, science and medicine, and religion. I also get to indulge in Canadian literature here, as I co-organize the Reading Series at St. Jerome’s.

The content that follows may only represent a portion of the Faculty member’s work.

Books

Austen in Asia, co-edited with Kimiyo Ogawa. Asia-Pacific and Literature in English series. Palgrave Macmillan, 2025.

Beastly Blake, co-edited with Helen P. Bruder. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018.

Canadian Music and American Culture: Get Away From Me, co-edited with Tomoyuki Iino. Pop Music, Culture and Identity Series. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017.

British Romanticism in European Perspective, co-edited with Steve Clark. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015.

Sexy Blake, co-edited with Helen P. Bruder. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013.

William Blake and the Body. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002.

Chapters

"Human grapes in the wine-presses: vegetable life and the violence of cultivation in Blake's Milton." Wild Romanticism, ed. Markus Poetzsch and Cassandra Falke. Routledge, 2021.

“‘Terrible Thunders’ and ‘Enormous Joys’: Blake’s Visions and James Graham’s Celestial Bed”. Blake’s Gothic Imagination ed. Christopher Bundock and Elizabeth Effinger. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2018.

“‘Mean, Mean Pride’: Rush’s Critique of American Cool”. Canadian Music and American Culture: Get Away From Me

“‘Mistaken for Natives of the Soil’: Translation and Erasmus Darwin’s Loves of the Plants”. British Romanticism in European Perspective

“‘His Stormy Bed’: Blake, Sex and Electricity”. Romantic Bodyscapes ed. Gerold Sedlmayr.  Studien zur Englischen Romantik series. Trier: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier, 2015.

Articles

Connolly, Tristanne. "The Eternal Lettuce." VALA: The Journal of the Blake Society, no. 3: 89-92. (2022).

“Flowery Porn: Form and Desire in Erasmus Darwin’s The Loves of the Plants”. Romantic Evolutions special issue ed. Joshua D. Lambier. Literature Compass 13.10 (2016).

“‘Diverse Little Pictures’: Erasmus Darwin’s Loves of the Plants and Isabella Rosselini’s Green Porno as Interactive Media”. Poetica 79 (2013). 

Others

“A Net We Throw Over the World: An Interview with Steve Noyes” The New Quarterly 141 (Winter 2017).

“Falling In Love with Bad Poetry” The New Quarterly 129 (Winter 2013).

ENGL 200A: English Literatures 1

ENGL 200B: English Literatures 2

ENGL 208N: Sex in Literature

ENGL 305B: The Age of Beowulf

ENGL 325: Austen

ENGL 371: Editing Literary Works

ENGL 430A: Literature of the Romantic Period 1

ENGL 430B: Literature of the Romantic Period 2

ENGL 725: Studies in Romanticism [Topic: William Blake, Image/Text, Non/Human]

British Romantic literature and culture (especially poetry)

William Blake

Erasmus Darwin

Gender and sexuality

Medical writing and illustration

Literature and science

Religion and literature

Grants

University of Manchester Research Networking Fund Grant for international collaboration in Tokyo on Eighteenth-Century Literature and Medicine (2013)

CIHR Operating Grant, “City Life and Well-Being: The Grey Zone of Health and Illness”. Primary investigator: Alan Blum (2006-2011)

Government of Canada Department of Foreign Affairs Cultural Personalities Exchange Program grant for lecture tour of Japan (2006)

St. Jerome’s University Faculty Research Grant (2005, 2012)

IODE War Memorial Postgraduate Scholarship (1998-1999)

SSHRC Doctoral Fellowship (1995-1997, declined; 1998-1999)

Commonwealth Scholarship (1995-1998) 

Fellowships

Corresponding Fellow, The English Association (2016-present)

Visiting Fellow, Institute of American and Canadian Studies, Sophia University, Tokyo (2009-present)

Visiting Scholar, Department of Contemporary Literary Studies, University of Tokyo (2007, 2008) 

Awards

Distinguished Teacher Award, University of Waterloo (2010)

The content that follows may only represent a portion of the Faculty member’s work. 

Professional

Editorial board member, Elements in Health Humanities. Cambridge University Press Elements series, ed. Andrew Mangham and Alanna Skuse. 2023-present.

Series editor, with Shun-liang Chao, Steve Clark, Laurence Williams, and Alex Watson, Asia-Pacific and Literature in English book series, Palgrave Macmillan. 2018-present.

Series editor, with Steve Clark and Jason Whittaker, Pop Music, Culture and Identity book series, Palgrave Macmillan (2012-present)

Advisory board member, Blake: An Illustrated Quarterly (2011-present) 

Administrative

St. Jerome’s University

St. Jerome’s Governance Committee: Member 2019-2024, Chair 2021-2024.

Joint Committee Representative, St. Jerome’s Academic Staff Association, 2017-2020.

Member, St. Jerome’s Health Humanities Diploma Development Working Group, 2021-2022.

Chair, English Department (2015-2018)

President, Academic Staff Association (2015-2017, 2018)

Co-organizer of The Reading Series (2006-present) 

University of Waterloo

Member, University of Waterloo English Department, ENGL 200A and B: Survey of British Literature 1 and 2 Diasporic / Postcolonial Revision Subcommittee, Fall 2020.

Member, Undergraduate Committee, English Department (2007-2010)

Senator, University of Waterloo Senate (2006-2010)

Member, Undergraduate Affairs Group, (2005-2006; 2008-2010)

Member, Eighteenth-Century and Nineteenth-Century British Literature Graduate Field

Examination Committees (2005-present) 

Community

Editorial board member (Poetry), The New Quarterly: Canadian Writers and Writing (2007-present)