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Dr Harry Whitehead
BA (Sussex), MSc (London), MA (London), PhD (Lancaster)
Lecturer in Creative Writing
Research interests
Harry Whitehead is a novelist and script editor who teaches creative writing.
His novel, The Cannibal Spirit, is a work of literary historical fiction set among the First Peoples of Canada at the turn of the twentieth century, and is forthcoming from Penguin.
Otherwise, he has published short fiction in a variety of more contemporary genres, and papers in the fields of anthropology and history; memory, nostalgia and identity; Native North American & Canadian history and ethnography; and psychoanalysis.
Before moving into academia, he worked for many years in film and TV production.
Current research
Currently, Harry is conducting research into medical anthropology, atheism and the history of rationality; and, more generally, creative writing practice and theory, especially in its application to wider pedagogic practices in higher education.
Postgraduate supervision
He welcomes postgraduate students interested in prose creative writing of all genres, as well as writing for the screen and graphic novels.
With an academic background in both creative writing and anthropology, he is interested particularly (but not exclusively) in colonial, postcolonial and cross-cultural writing, especially with regard to issues of memory and nostalgia.
Teaching
- MA Modern Lit. & Creative Writing Module: Writing Fiction
- MA English Studies Module: Cities of Words
- 1st Yr U/G Module: A Literary Genre: the Novel
- 3rd Yr U/G Special Subject Module: Writing Prose Fiction
- 3rd Yr U/G Special Subject Module: Understanding Screenplays
Administration
- Library Rep
- Student Staff Committee
- ERASMUS & JYA Incoming
Recent publications
Novel
The Cannibal Spirit, forthcoming in Oct 2011. Hamish Hamilton (and imprint of Penguin), Canada.
Short Fiction
‘Dust’, in The Storyteller Magazine Vol 14, Issue 2, 2008.
‘Black Amex and Chop’, at Whimperbang Vol. 10, 2007.
Papers
‘Quest for Quesalid: Myth-Making and Rationality in the Initiation of a Shaman’, in Georganta et.al. (eds.) (2009) The Apothecary’s Chest: Magic, Art and Medication. Cambridge: CSP.
‘Yearning for Authenticity on the Northwest Coast of Canada’, in Memory Studies, July 2010.
‘To Shed What Still Attempts to Cling as if Attached by Thorns’ in The John Bowlby Memorial Lecture Series 2011. Forthcoming in 2011. Karnac Books, London.
