Prof Norman Vance

Biography

Professor of English (1993-2012); Professor of English Literature and Intellectual History (2012-)

Fellow of the English Association (2000-), Fellow of the Royal Historical Society (2005-), Chair, Higher Education Committee of English Association, 2004-8. Member of AHRC Peer Review College 2004- .

Born in Belfast in 1950, I was educated at local schools and then at Wadham College, Oxford (B.A. 1971, M.A., D.Phil. 1975).  I came to Sussex in 1976, having previously been Harold Salvesen Junior Research Fellow at New College, Oxford, 1974-76.  I was Visiting Professor, State University of New York (Plattsburg) in 1985.

Role

Professor of English Literature and Intellectual History

Interests include Victorian and Irish literature, religion and society, and biblical and classical influences on English literature.  My published work, most recently my books The Victorians and Ancient Rome (1997) and Irish Literature since 1800 (2002), could best be described as literary history.  I am currently writing a book about connections between the perceived loss of Biblical authority and the development of Victorian and post-Victorian fiction in an increasingly secular society.  With Jennifer Wallace I am editing the fourth volume (1780-1880) of the Oxford History of Classical Reception in English Literature.  I am also starting to explore the different kinds of Irish intellectual and cultural aristocracies from the seventeenth century to the present.

I teach a wide range of undergraduate and MA courses, usually including 'Irish Writing after Joyce,' 'Period of English 1750-1880' and the MA course 'Culture and Intellect'.  I also supervise research on nineteenth-century, religious, classical and Irish topics.

Student Consultation

For 2012-13 Norman Vance will (usually) be available in B341 Mondays 3.00-4.00 and Thursdays 12.00-1.00, or email r.n.c.vance@sussex.ac.uk for an appointment.

Vance, Norman (2013) Bible and Novel: Narrative Authority and the Death of God. Oxford University Press, Oxford. ISBN 9780199680573

Vance, Norman (2013) The identity of Ferguson. In: Forging the anchor: Samuel Ferguson and his legacy. Four Courts Press, Dublin. ISBN 9781846823626

Vance, Norman (2012) 'The reception of Plato' [Review] K Demetriou (2011) Studies on the reception of Plato and Greek political thought in Victorian Britain. Classical Review (New Series), 62 (2). pp. 409-411. ISSN 0009-840X

Vance, Norman (2012) The Church in danger: Mrs Humphry Ward's 'The case of Richard Meynell'. International Journal for the Study of the Christian Church, 12 (3). ISSN 1474-225x

Vance, Norman (2012) Marechera in Oxford. In: Moving spirit: the legacy of Dambudzo Marechera in the 21st century. African languages - African literatures (4). LIT Verlag Münster, Münster, pp. 93-96. ISBN 9783643902153

Vance, Norman (2012) Religion and the Novel. In: The Nineteenth-Century Novel 1820-1880. The Oxford History of: The Novel in English, 3 . Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp. 476-491. ISBN 9780199560615

Vance, Norman (2011) Classics and Modern War. International Journal of the Classical Tradition, 18 (4). pp. 593-598. ISSN 1073-0508

Vance, Norman (2011) Anxieties of empire and the moral tradition: Rome and Britain. International Journal of the Classical Tradition, 18 (2). pp. 246-261. ISSN 1073-0508

Vance, Norman (2011) More light? Biblical criticism and enlightenment attitudes. In: Religion in the Age of Enlightenment. AMS Press, Religion in the Age of Enlightenment, pp. 131-152. ISBN 9780404633127

Vance, Norman (2010) The sinews of the spirit: the ideal of Christian manliness in Victorian literature and religious thought. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521128605

Vance, Norman (2009) Donne's 'Death be not proud' and the Book of Homilies. Notes and Queries, 56 (1). pp. 75-76. ISSN 0029-3970

Vance, Norman (2009) Kailyard stories in Ulster: northern fiction after Carleton. In: Revising Robert Burns and Ulster: literature, religion and politics, c.1770-1920. Four Courts Press Ltd, Dublin ; Portland, Ore, pp. 148-164. ISBN 9781846821974

Vance, Norman (2008) Helen Waddell and literary Europe. In: Queen's thinkers: essays on the intellectual heritage of a university. Northern Ireland Blackstaff Press, pp. 69-82. ISBN 9780856408038

Vance, Norman (2007) George Eliot and Thomas Hardy. In: Oxford Handbook of English literature and theology. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp. 483-498. ISBN 9780199271979

Vance, Norman (2007) Pilgrims abounding: Bunyan and the Victorian novel. In: Reception, appropriation, recollection: Bunyan's 'Pilgrim's Progress'. Peter Lang AG, pp. 69-79. ISBN 9783039107209

Vance, Norman (2007) Victorian. In: A companion to the classical tradition. Blackwell, Malden, pp. 87-100. ISBN 9781405122948

Vance, Norman (2006) Region, realism and reaction, 1922-1972. In: The Cambridge companion to the Irish novel. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge et al, pp. 153-170. ISBN 9780521679961

Vance, Prof Norman, ed. (2006) Irish Studies and English Studies. English Association Issues in English . The English Association. ISBN 0-900-23224-2

Vance, Norman (2006) Classics and the Dardanelles Campaign. Notes and Queries, 53 (3). pp. 347-349. ISSN 0029-3970

Vance, Norman (2006) Hugh Hamilton. In: Dictionary of Irish philosophers. Thoemmes Continuum, Bristol. ISBN 9781843710820

Vance, Norman (2006) Protestant form and Catholic fiction? In: The Irish Novel in the Nineteenth Century: Facts and Fictions. Four Courts, pp. 139-149. ISBN 9781851829330

Vance, Norman (2006) Tom Paulin. In: Oxford encyclopedia of British literature. Oxford University Press, Oxford & New York. ISBN 9780195169218

Vance, Norman (2006) William Carleton and the big house. In: William Carleton: the authentic voice. Irish Literary Studies, 53 . Colin Smythe. ISBN 9780861404629

Riggs, Paidrigin and Vance, Norman (2005) Irish prose fiction. In: Cambridge companion to modern Irish culture. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge ; New York, pp. 245-266. ISBN 9780521820097

Vance, Norman (2004) Sam Hanna Bell; F.W. Farrar; Thomas Colley Grattan; Douglas Hyde; Charles Kingsley; Fanny Kingsley and Charles Vallancey. In: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press, Oxford. ISBN 9780198614111

Vance, Norman (2004) Dark and bright fathers: tracing intellectual aristocracy in Ireland. Hungarian Journal of English and American Studies, 10 (1-2). pp. 283-290. ISSN 1218-7364

Vance, Norman (2004) Decadence from Belfast to Byzantium. New Literary History , 35 (4). pp. 563-572. ISSN 0028-6087

Vance, Norman (2003) Vom Mare nostrum zu Kipling's 'The Seven Seas'. Das Romische Weltreich und Britanniens Wahrnehmung des Empire von 1600-1914. In: Aufbruch in neue Welten und neue Zeiten: Die grossen maritimen Expansionsbewegungen de Antike und Fruhen Neuzeit im Vergleich. R Oldenbourg, pp. 79-108. ISBN 9783486644340

Vance, Norman (2002) Irish literature since 1800. Longman Literature In English Series . Longman. ISBN 9780582494787

Vance, Norman (2001) Volunteer thought: William Crawford of Strabane. In: Political discourse in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Ireland. Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 257-269. ISBN 9780333712610

Vance, Norman (2001) The problems of unionist literature: Macaulay, Froude and Lawless. In: Defenders of the union: a survey of British and Irish unionism since 1801. Routledge, London & New York, pp. 176-187. ISBN 9780415174220

Vance, Norman (2000) Improving Ireland: Richard Whately, theology, and political economy. In: Economy, polity and society: British intellectual history 1750-1950. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 181-204. ISBN 9780521639781

Vance, Norman (2000) Niebuhr in England: history, faith and order. In: British and German historiography 1750-1950: traditions, perceptions and transfers. Oxford University Press, Oxford & New York. ISBN 9780199202355

Vance, Norman (2000) Secular apocalyptic and Thomas Hardy. History of European Ideas, 26 (3-4). pp. 201-210. ISSN 0191-6599

Vance, Norman (1999) Irish literature, a social history. Four Courts Press, Dublin & Portland. ISBN 9781851824502

Vance, Norman (1998) The nineteenth-century English novel as secular Christianity. In: Acculturation/inculturation du christianisme en Europe. KLINCKSIECK. ISBN 9782864603436

Vance, Norman (1997) The Victorians & Ancient Rome. Wiley-Blackwell, Oxford, xii + 319 pp. ISBN 9780631180760