Steven Kevin Connor, FBA (born 11 February 1955) is a British literary scholar. Since 2012, he has been the Grace 2 Professor of English in the

University of Cambridge , mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts. Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge. , established = , other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...

and a Fellow of

Peterhouse, Cambridge Peterhouse is the oldest constituent college of the University of Cambridge in England, founded in 1284 by Hugh de Balsham, Bishop of Ely. Today, Peterhouse has 254 undergraduates, 116 full-time graduate students and 54 fellows. It is quite ...

. He was formerly the academic director of the

London Consortium From 1993 to 2012, The London Consortium was a graduate school in the UK offering multidisciplinary Masters and Doctoral programs in the humanities and cultural studies at the University of London. It was administered by Birkbeck, University of ...

and professor of modern literature and theory at

Birkbeck, University of London , mottoeng = Advice comes over nightTranslation used by Birkbeck. , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £4.3 m (2014) , budget = £10 ...

Early life and education

Connor was born on 11 February 1955 in

Chichester Chichester () is a cathedral city and civil parish in West Sussex, England.OS Explorer map 120: Chichester, South Harting and Selsey Scale: 1:25 000. Publisher:Ordnance Survey – Southampton B2 edition. Publishing Date:2009. It is the only ci ...

Bognor Regis Bognor Regis (), sometimes simply known as Bognor (), is a town and seaside resort in West Sussex on the south coast of England, south-west of London, west of Brighton, south-east of Chichester and east of Portsmouth. Other nearby towns ...

, both in

Sussex Sussex (), from the Old English (), is a historic county in South East England that was formerly an independent medieval Anglo-Saxon kingdom. It is bounded to the west by Hampshire, north by Surrey, northeast by Kent, south by the English ...

, England.'CONNOR, Prof. Steven Kevin', ''

Who's Who 2017 ''Who's Who'' is a reference work. It is a book, and also a CD-ROM and a website, giving information on influential people from around the world. Published annually as a book since 1849, it lists people who influence British life, according to i ...

'', A & C Black, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing plc, 2017; online edn, Oxford University Press, 2016; online edn, Nov 201
accessed 15 Nov 2017
/ref> From 1966 to 1972, he was educated at

Christ's Hospital Christ's Hospital is a public school (English independent boarding school for pupils aged 11–18) with a royal charter located to the south of Horsham in West Sussex. The school was founded in 1552 and received its first royal charter in 1553 ...

, then an all-boys

independent school An independent school is independent in its finances and governance. Also known as private schools, non-governmental, privately funded, or non-state schools, they are not administered by local, state or national governments. In British Eng ...

Horsham Horsham is a market town on the upper reaches of the River Arun on the fringe of the Weald in West Sussex, England. The town is south south-west of London, north-west of Brighton and north-east of the county town of Chichester. Nearby to ...

, Sussex. Having been expelled from Christ's Hospital, he attended Bognor Regis School, a

comprehensive school A comprehensive school typically describes a secondary school for pupils aged approximately 11–18, that does not select its intake on the basis of academic achievement or aptitude, in contrast to a selective school system where admission is res ...

in Bognor Regis. In 1973, he

matriculated Matriculation is the formal process of entering a university, or of becoming eligible to enter by fulfilling certain academic requirements such as a matriculation examination. Australia In Australia, the term "matriculation" is seldom used now. ...

into

Wadham College, Oxford Wadham College () is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. It is located in the centre of Oxford, at the intersection of Broad Street and Parks Road. Wadham College was founded in 1610 by Dorothy W ...

to study English; his

tutor TUTOR, also known as PLATO Author Language, is a programming language developed for use on the PLATO system at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign beginning in roughly 1965. TUTOR was initially designed by Paul Tenczar for use in co ...

was

Terry Eagleton Terence Francis Eagleton (born 22 February 1943) is an English literary theorist, critic, and public intellectual. He is currently Distinguished Professor of English Literature at Lancaster University. Eagleton has published over forty books, ...

. He graduated with a first class Bachelor of Arts (BA) degree in 1976. He remained at Oxford to study for a Doctor of Philosophy (DPhil) degree in English. He completed his doctorate in 1980 with a thesis titled "Prose fantasy and myth-criticism 1880–1900".

Academic career

In 1979 or 1980, Connor joined

Birkbeck College Birkbeck, University of London (formally Birkbeck College, University of London), is a public university, public research university, located in Bloomsbury, London, England, and a constituent college, member institution of the federal Universit ...

University of London The University of London (UoL; abbreviated as Lond or more rarely Londin in post-nominals) is a federal public research university located in London, England, United Kingdom. The university was established by royal charter in 1836 as a degree ...

, as a lecturer in English. He was promoted to

senior lecturer Senior lecturer is an academic rank. In the United Kingdom, Ireland, New Zealand, Australia, Switzerland, and Israel senior lecturer is a faculty position at a university or similar institution. The position is tenured (in systems with this concep ...

in 1990, made

Reader A reader is a person who reads. It may also refer to: Computing and technology * Adobe Reader (now Adobe Acrobat), a PDF reader * Bible Reader for Palm, a discontinued PDA application * A card reader, for extracting data from various forms of ...

in Modern English Literature in 1991, and appointed

Professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who pr ...

of Modern Literature and Theory in 1994. He held two senior positions at the college: he was Pro-Vice-Master for International and Research Students between 1998 and 2001; and College Orator between 2001 and 2012. From 2002 to 2012, he additionally served as Academic Director of the

, a graduate school of the University of London that specialised

multidisciplinary Interdisciplinarity or interdisciplinary studies involves the combination of multiple academic disciplines into one activity (e.g., a research project). It draws knowledge from several other fields like sociology, anthropology, psychology, ec ...

programs. In October 2012, Connor was appointed the Grace 2 Professor of English in the

Faculty of English Faculty may refer to: * Faculty (academic staff), the academic staff of a university (North American usage) * Faculty (division), a division within a university (usage outside of the United States) * Faculty (instrument), an instrument or warrant ...

. He was also elected a

Fellow A fellow is a concept whose exact meaning depends on context. In learned or professional societies, it refers to a privileged member who is specially elected in recognition of their work and achievements. Within the context of higher education ...

Personal life

In 1984, Connor married Lindsey Richardson. Together they had one daughter. They divorced in 1988. In 2005, Connor married

Lynda Nead Lynda Nead is a British curator and art historian. She is currently the Pevsner Chair of the History of Art at Birkbeck, University of London. Nead's work studies British art, media, culture and often focuses on gender. Nead is a fellow of the B ...

. Together they have two sons. Nead is an art historian and academic.

Honours

In 2012, Connor was elected an Honorary Fellow of

Birkbeck, University of London , mottoeng = Advice comes over nightTranslation used by Birkbeck. , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £4.3 m (2014) , budget = £10 ...

. In July 2016, he was elected a

Fellow of the British Academy Fellowship of the British Academy (FBA) is an award granted by the British Academy to leading academics for their distinction in the humanities and social sciences. The categories are: # Fellows – scholars resident in the United Kingdom # C ...

(FBA), the United Kingdom's

national academy A national academy is an organizational body, usually operating with state financial support and approval, that co-ordinates scholarly research activities and standards for academic disciplines, most frequently in the sciences but also the humanit ...

for the humanities and social sciences.

Selected works

Books

* ''Charles Dickens'' (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1985) * ''Samuel Beckett: Repetition, Theory and Text'' (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1988) * ''Postmodernist Culture: An Introduction to Theories of the Contemporary'' (1989) 2nd, revised and enlarged edn (Oxford: Blackwell, 1996) * ''Theory and Cultural Value'' (1992) * ''The English Novel in History 1950–1995'' (1995) * ''James Joyce'' (Exeter: Northcote House, 1996) * ''Dumbstruck – A Cultural History of Ventriloquism'' (2000) * ''The Book of Skin'' (2003) * ''Fly'' (London: Reaktion, 2006) * ''The Matter of Air: Science and Art of the Ethereal'' (London: Reaktion, 2010) * (ed.) ''Samuel Beckett: The Unnamable'' (London: Faber, 2010) * ''Paraphernalia: The Curious Lives of Magical Things'' (London: Profile, 2011) * ''A Philosophy of Sport'' (London: Reaktion, 2011) * ''Beyond Words: Sobs, Hums, Stutters and Other Vocalizations'' (London: Reaktion, 2014) * ''Beckett, Modernism and the Material Imagination'' (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014) * ''Living By Numbers: In Defence of Quantity'' (London: Reaktion, 2016) * ''Dream Machines'' (London: Open Humanities Press, 2017) * ''The Madness of Knowledge: On Wisdom, Ignorance and Fantasies of Knowing'' (London: Reaktion, 2019) * ''Giving Way: Thoughts on Unappreciated Dispositions'' (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2019)

Articles

* 'Next to Nothing', Tate Etc., 12 (2008): 82–93. * 'The Shakes: Conditions of Tremor', The Senses and Society, 3 (2008): 205–20. * ‘On Such and Such a Day…In Such a World': Beckett’s Radical Finitude. In Borderless Beckett/Beckett sans frontières, Samuel Beckett Today/Aujourd’hui, 19 (2008): 35–50. * ‘Le Voci Dentro e Fuori di Noi’, (interview with Enzo Mansueto), Rodeo, 43 (2008): 66. * 'The Right Stuff', Modern Painters (March 2009): 58–63. * 'Strings in the Earth and Air', New Formations (Special Issue on Postmodernism, Music and Cultural Theory, ed. David Bennett ), 66 (2009), 58–67. * 'Pulverulence', Cabinet, 35 (2009): 71–77. * 'Absolute Levity', Comparative Critical Studies, 6 (2009): 411–27. *

References

External links

Official web site
{{DEFAULTSORT:Connor, Steven Living people 1955 births British literary historians Fellows of Peterhouse, Cambridge Academics of Birkbeck, University of London Alumni of Wadham College, Oxford People from Chichester People from Bognor Regis People educated at Christ's Hospital Philosophers of sport