Prof Matthew Dimmock

Biography

From Yorkshire to Northamptonshire to rural Lincolnshire, I eventually ended up at the University of Leeds and completed a BA and an MA in the English Department there. A year of work followed, after which I decided to return to academia, and spent three years at Royal Holloway, University of London, studying for a PhD. This was awarded towards the end of 2002, and my thesis explored the ways in which Islam and the Ottoman Empire were understood in early modern English culture - particularly how the 'terrible turk' was represented on the professional stage. Almost immediately upon completing the PhD I took up a Visiting Scholarship at the University of Leiden in The Netherlands. For three and a half cold but productive months I skated on canals, took courses in early Dutch, worked in the National Archives in The Hague, and taught on the MA in European Expansion. Upon my return I continued researching as Visiting Scholar at the Centre for Editing Lives and Letters at Queen Mary, University of London, for a few months in the summer of 2003, after which I took up a position as Lecturer in English Literature at the University of Sussex. I became Professor of Early Modern Studies in early 2013.

A while back I was interviewed on the Radio 3 documentary 'Courting the East', and some time before that I appeared on the Channel Four documentary 'Great British Islam'. More recently I co-curated the 'East-West: Objects Between Cultures' exhibition at Tate Britain - see http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/exhibitions/eastwest/default.shtm - and curated the opening section of the Jamestown-Yorktown 'World of 1607' exhibition, celebrating the 400 year anniversary of the first American colonies - for more details, see http://www.jamestown2007.org. Over the past couple of years I have given talks and papers in various capacities at the Globe Theatre, the Victoria & Albert Museum, the National Maritime Museum, Tate Britain, the Universities of Aberystwyth, Basle, Bangor, Berlin, Copenhagen, Leeds, Montpellier, Oxford, Birkbeck, University of London, Queen Mary, University of London, Trinity College Dublin and the Max Planck Institute in Florence. I used to live in Brighton, then upgraded to Hove and now have reached the giddy heights of Polegate, on the edge of the South Downs. However I still don't quite have a view of the sea.

Role

Professor of Early Modern Studies

Director of Student Experience

Early Modern English Literature and History, including notions of 'otherness' which concern cultural, racial and religious difference - particularly in reference to Islam.

One of my recently completed research students worked on witchcraft and the book trade with AHRC funding; another studied early modern English perceptions of Persia and sectarian divisions within Islam with a scholarship from the Pakistan Higher Education Commission. Of my current research students, one works on early modern conceptions of 'trash'; another on English perceptions of the Qur'an between 1649 and 1734; and another on the early modern drama collection at Petworth House. I would be very interested to hear from any prospective students who wish to study in these fields.

In the Spring term of 2013 I am teaching the final year undergraduate course 'Islam, Literature and 'The West'', the second year drama course 'Early Modern Drama and Contemporary Theatre' and the MA course 'Race and Colonialism in Early Modern Literature and Culture'.

Student Consultation

Tuesdays 11-12, Fridays 2-3

Dimmock, Matthew (2012) Materialising Islam on the early modern stage. In: Early modern encounters with the Islamic East: performing cultures. Transculturalisms, 1400-1700 (5). Ashgate, Farnham, pp. 115-132. ISBN 9781409438502

Dimmock, Matthew (2007) Power and Identity in the World of 1607. [Show/Exhibition]

Dimmock, Matthew (2006) Crusading piracy? The curious case of the Spanish in the Channel, 1590-95. In: Pirates? The politics of plunder, 1550-1650. Early Modern Literature in History . Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 74-89. ISBN 9780230003279

Birchwood, Matthew, Dimmock, Matthew and Jardine, Lisa (2006) East-West: Objects Between Cultures. [Show/Exhibition]

Dimmock, Dr Matthew, ed. (2006) William Percy's Mahomet and his Heaven: A Critical Edition. Ashgate. ISBN 0-7546-5406-0

Dimmock, Dr Matthew, ed. (2005) Cultural Encounters Between East and West, 1453 - 1699. Cambridge Scholars Press. ISBN 1-904303-41-2

Dimmock, Matthew (2005) New Turkes: dramatizing Islam and the Ottomans in early modern England. Ashgate, Aldershot. ISBN 9780754650225

Dimmock, Matthew (2004) Machomet dyd before as Luther doth nowe: Islam, the Ottomans and the English Reformation. Reformation, 9. pp. 99-130. ISSN 1357-4175