Anglo-American modernist literature; early twentieth century cultural history; modernism and censorship.

Rachel Potter’s main research interests lie in the areas of modernist literature and culture. She is currently working on a new book, called Obscene Modernism: Literary Censorship and Experiment, 1900-1940, which will investigate the relationship between Anglo-American modernist literature, censorship and obscenity. In the book, she will focus on a number of modernist writers, including James Joyce, D. H. Lawrence, Wyndham Lewis, and Djuna Barnes; but there will also be chapters on Parisian publishers of banned books in the 1920s and 1930s, and an analysis of how the political context of the 1930s affected notions of freedom of speech and the role of artistic language. Part of this research has been published in a special issue of Critical Quarterly called ‘Low Modernism’, which collects together articles on questions of modernist obscenity, and which Rachel co-edited with Professor David Trotter. Her current research follows on from her first book, Modernism and Democracy: Literary Culture, 1900-1930 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), which explored the relationship between modernist literature, mostly the poetry of H. D., T. S. Eliot and Mina Loy, and ideas of political and legal democracy in the early twentieth century. As an offshoot to ideas explored in this book, Rachel has edited a Companion to Mina Loy (forthcoming, Cambridge: Salt Publishers, July 2010), which comprises a collection of essays on Loy’s work. Rachel has also been contracted to write an introductory Guide to modernist literature as part of the new Edinburgh Guides to Literature series. Topics considered will include the artistic, social, publishing and financial networks which connected writers together; the geography of modernism; and the impact of mass culture on modernist writing.

Deputy Head of School