Professor Youngs is the Director of Nottingham Trent University’s Centre for Travel Writing Studies. He is also Postgraduate Tutor for the School of Arts and Humanities, and Co-ordinator of the English Research Seminar series. He undertakes teaching and research in the areas of African-American Writing, Literature of the United States, and Travel Writing.
Professor Youngs is widely regarded as a world-leading figure in the development of travel writing studies. As well as his own many publications on the subject, his contributions to the field include:
- The founding in 1997 of the journal Studies in Travel Writing (now published four times a year by Routledge), which he continues to edit
- The Borders and Crossings series of international conferences (inaugurated with Glenn Hooper in 1998)
- The establishment in 2002 of NTU's Centre for Travel Writing Studies and of its biennial series of postgraduate day-seminars
- The establishment with Peter Hulme of the monograph series Routledge Research in Travel Writing
- His co-organisation of several seminars and conferences in the UK and abroad
Such activities have helped secure him an international reputation as a key facilitator and innovator in the field. Besides travel writing, Professor Youngs' teaching and research interests include United States Literature (post-1850, and especially the 1890s); British literature (post-1850, especially modernism); and Postcolonial Writing.
Professor Youngs is a member of
Current projects:
- Completion of a book on late nineteenth-century fiction for Liverpool University Press (forthcoming 2013)
- Ashgate Research Companion to Travel Writing (ed.with Alasdair Pettinger)
- Series Editor, Routledge Research in Travel Writing, with Professor Peter Hulme (2007-present)
- Founding Editor of Studies in Travel Writing, published four times a year by Routledge (1997-present)
Professor Youngs welcomes inquiries from prospective research students (at MRes, MPhil and PhD level) in travel writing studies, African-American writing, and in other areas of post-1850 Anglophone literature (including late nineteenth-century British and US literature, modernist and postcolonial writing). Students he is currently supervising as Director of Studies include Esme Coulbert, funded by an AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Award scheme, working with Coventry Transport Museum on early narratives of travel by automobile; Glen Winfield on contemporary African American travel writing; Mark Sullivan on Richard Harding Davis; Mara Sprengel on Palestine and travel; and Tony Robinson-Smith, writing a travelogue of Bhutan for a creative writing PhD. Further information may be obtained from the NTU Graduate School.
Selected publications
- The Cambridge Introduction to Travel Writing (Cambridge University Press). Youngs T and Hulme P, 2012, Cambridge University Press
- Pushing Against the Black / White Limits of Maps: African American Writings of Travel. Youngs T, English Studies in Africa, 2010, 53 (2), 71-85
- Beastly Journeys: Travel and Transformation at the fin de Siècle. Youngs T, due for publication 2013, Liverpool University Press
- The Pacifist Traveller: Kate Crane-Gartz, Youngs T in American Travel and Empire, eds S Castillo and D Seed, 2009, 200-216 Liverpool University Press
- Travelling Modernists. Youngs T in Peter Brooker et al eds, The Oxford Handbook of Modernisms, 2010, 267-280, Oxford University Press
For full list click 'Go to Timothy Youngs' publications' link above.
