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“Romantic Ecologies and Colonial Cultures” Published August 19th, 2009

After a wonderful month spent reading old books and manuscripts in the archives of Edinburgh and London, I returned home a couple of weeks ago to find copies of my latest book waiting in my mailbox.  Entitled Romantic Ecologies and Colonial Cultures 1770-1850, this book is the product of over five years of research and writing.  Check out the blurb and purchasing information–as well as an image of the book’s beautiful Blakean cover art–on the McGill-Queen’s University Press website at http://mqup.mcgill.ca/book.php?bookid=2420

In the book I examine British Romantic representations of African and North American Indigenous peoples, and I consider the ways that contemporary African and Native American writers engaged with and challenged these representations.  The book’s cover reproduces William Blake’s allegorical engraving “Europe supported by Africa and America”–a most appropriate cover image given the book’s focus on European, African, and American colonial relations.  Fans of Blake’s illuminated poetry might be interested to know that Chapter 3 is devoted to a discussion of Blake’s anti-slavery allegory Visions of the Daughters of Albion.