Adam Hallett

University of Exeter, Department of English, Alumnus

Followers

Following

Public Views

I am currently an independent researcher, having previously served as a lecturer at the University of Exeter convening African American Literature 1900-1960 and Revolutions and Evolutions: Nineteenth-Century Writing. I have also taught on Introduction to American Literature and Critical Practice.

I completed my Ph.D. at the University of Exeter in 2011, where I also gained a B.A. and M.A. My doctoral thesis was entitled ‘America Seen: British and American Nineteenth Century Travels in the United States’.

My thesis looked at the development of perceptions of the United States by British and American literary travellers in the nineteenth century. I examine different factors which alter point of view for both the traveller and the writer; including travel technology (steamboats, rail), various frontiers, the American landscape, textual history and fictionalisation. Authors include Frances Trollope, Washington Irving, Charles Dickens, Anthony Trollope, Mark Twain, Robert Louis Stevenson and Henry James.

My next project will be examining the writing of Washington Irving on the West and New York, discussing sources, landscape, and the construction of narrative. I gave a paper on this subject at the Pacific Ancient and Modern Languages Association conference in Seattle, Washington during October 2012.

In 2009, I was selected for the competitive U.S.-U.K. Fulbright Commission American Studies Summer Institute at New York University.

I have worked on the Transatlantic Exchanges project – an interdisciplinary collaboration between the Universities of Exeter and Plymouth – which has resulted in a chapter for a forthcoming book publication.
Supervisors: Mark Whalan and Robert Lawson-Peebles

less

Galen Strawson

The University of Texas at Austin

Matt Karp

Princeton University

Francesco Guidi Bruscoli

Università degli Studi di Firenze (University of Florence)

Dan Hicks

University of Oxford

Shaun Gallagher

University of Memphis

Armando Marques-Guedes

UNL - New University of Lisbon

Joris Larik

Universiteit Leiden

Beverly Haviland

Brown University

Manfred Malzahn

United Arab Emirates University

Tim Youngs

Nottingham Trent University

InterestsView All (16)

Uploads

Papers by Adam Hallett

Made of the Mist: Nineteenth-Century British and American Views of Niagara I

Literature Compass, 2014

Writing within the conventions of the European sublime was often problematic for 19th-century tra... more Writing within the conventions of the European sublime was often problematic for 19th-century travel writers who discovered that Niagara had no Old World precedent. I am concerned here with the development of the Falls' treatment in the 19th century when they first became widely written upon, painted, and commercially exploited after the 1825 completion of the Erie Canal. In what follows, I explore the importance of various 'points of view,' a term often used by Henry James as a device to describe a perspective both visual and thematic. These points of view will take in subjects that include silence, guidebook empiricism, guidebook Romanticism, nationalism, irreverence and an artistic acceptance of the Falls as a tourist destination.

Download

Reviews

European Journal of American Culture, 2011

America Seen: British and American Nineteenth Century Travels in the United States

The thesis discusses the development of nineteenth century responses to the United States. It hin... more The thesis discusses the development of nineteenth century responses to the United States. It hinges upon the premise that travel writing is narrative and that the travelling itself must therefore be constructed (or reconstructed) as narrative in order to make it available for writing. By applying narratology to the work of literary travel writers from Frances Trollope to Henry James I show the influence of travelling point of view and writing point of view on the narrative. Where these two points of view are in conflict I suggest reasons for this and identify signs in the narrative which display the disparity. There are several influences on point of view which are discussed in the thesis. The first is mode of travel: the development of steamboats and later locomotives increasingly divested travellers from the landscape through which they were travelling. I concentrate on Frances Trollope, Charles Dickens and Mark Twain travelling by boat, and Robert Louis Stevenson and Henry James...

Download

Made of the Mist: Nineteenth-Century British and American Views of Niagara II

Writing within the conventions of the European sublime was often problematic for 19th-century tra... more Writing within the conventions of the European sublime was often problematic for 19th-century travel writers who found Niagara had no Old World precedent. Frances and Anthony Trollope, Dickens, Hawthorne, Margaret Fuller, Twain, and Henry James all made important contributions to the literary development of the Fall's treatment in the 19th century, when they first became widely written upon, painted, and commodified after the 1825 completion of the Erie Canal. This article explores the importance of these authors' points of view of the cataract in relation to silence, guidebook empiricism, guidebook Romanticism, irreverence, and the problematic prospect of coming to terms with the Falls as a commercial and tourist destination.

Made of the Mist: Nineteenth Century British and American Views of Niagara I

Writing within the conventions of the European sublime was often problematic for 19th-century tra... more Writing within the conventions of the European sublime was often problematic for 19th-century travel writers who discovered that Niagara had no Old World precedent. I am concerned here with the development of the Falls' treatment in the 19th century when they first became widely written upon, painted, and commercially exploited after the 1825 completion of the Erie Canal. In what follows, I explore the importance of various ‘points of view,’ a term often used by Henry James as a device to describe a perspective both visual and thematic. These points of view will take in subjects that include silence, guidebook empiricism, guidebook Romanticism, nationalism, irreverence and an artistic acceptance of the Falls as a tourist destination.

America Seen: British and American Nineteenth Century Travels in the United States

eric.exeter.ac.uk

The thesis discusses the development of nineteenth century responses to the United States. It hin... more

Made of the Mist: Nineteenth-Century British and American Views of Niagara I

Literature Compass, 2014

Download

Reviews

European Journal of American Culture, 2011

America Seen: British and American Nineteenth Century Travels in the United States

Download

Made of the Mist: Nineteenth-Century British and American Views of Niagara II

Writing within the conventions of the European sublime was often problematic for 19th-century tra... more Writing within the conventions of the European sublime was often problematic for 19th-century travel writers who found Niagara had no Old World precedent. Frances and Anthony Trollope, Dickens, Hawthorne, Margaret Fuller, Twain, and Henry James all made important contributions to the literary development of the Fall's treatment in the 19th century, when they first became widely written upon, painted, and commodified after the 1825 completion of the Erie Canal. This article explores the importance of these authors' points of view of the cataract in relation to silence, guidebook empiricism, guidebook Romanticism, irreverence, and the problematic prospect of coming to terms with the Falls as a commercial and tourist destination.

Made of the Mist: Nineteenth Century British and American Views of Niagara I

Writing within the conventions of the European sublime was often problematic for 19th-century tra... more Writing within the conventions of the European sublime was often problematic for 19th-century travel writers who discovered that Niagara had no Old World precedent. I am concerned here with the development of the Falls' treatment in the 19th century when they first became widely written upon, painted, and commercially exploited after the 1825 completion of the Erie Canal. In what follows, I explore the importance of various ‘points of view,’ a term often used by Henry James as a device to describe a perspective both visual and thematic. These points of view will take in subjects that include silence, guidebook empiricism, guidebook Romanticism, nationalism, irreverence and an artistic acceptance of the Falls as a tourist destination.

America Seen: British and American Nineteenth Century Travels in the United States

eric.exeter.ac.uk

The thesis discusses the development of nineteenth century responses to the United States. It hin... more

Adam Hallett

Uploads

Papers by Adam Hallett

Log In