Avery Todd

Todd P. Avery, Ph.D.

Professor

College
College of Fine Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences
Department
English
Phone
978-934-4184
Office
O'Leary Library - 4th Floor

Research Interests

Bloomsbury, Strachey, modernism, ethics, literature, and radio.

Bloomsbury Group, Lytton Strachey, modernist literature, ethical philosophy, and queer theory.

Education

  • Ph D: English Literature, (2001), Indiana University - Bloomington, ID
    Supporting Area: Cultural Studies
  • MA: English, (1997), Indiana University - Bloomington, IN
  • BA: English, (1994), Providence College

Biosketch

Todd Avery specializes in British literature of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, with a secondary emphasis in cultural studies and a perennial concern with relations among literature, ethical philosophy, and emergent technologies. Since 2001, he has published several articles and reviews on British modernism, especially the Bloomsbury Group. His book, "Radio Modernism: Literature, Ethics, and the BBC 1922-1938," was published in September 2006 by Ashgate Press.

Selected Awards and Honors

  • Dissertation-Year Fellowship, Scholarship/Research - Department of English, Indiana University
  • New England Educator of the Year (2012), Teaching - University Professional and Continuing Education Association (UPCEA)
  • William E. Haskell Jr. Memorial Award for Distinguished Teaching (2012), Teaching - University of Massachusetts Lowell Division of Continuing Studies
  • William E. Haskell, Jr., Memorial Award for Distinguished Teaching (2012), Teaching - University of Massachusetts Lowell Division of Continuing Studies
  • Teacher of the Year Award (2011), Teaching - University of Massachusetts Lowell Student Government Association
  • C. Everett Helm Visiting Scholar Fellowship (2005), Scholarship/Research - Lilly Library, Indiana University
  • University of Massachusetts Lowell Teaching Excellence Award (2004), Teaching - University of Massachusetts Lowell
  • Teaching Excellence Recognition Award (2000), Teaching - Indiana University
  • Ashton Award for the Outstanding Graduate Student in English (1999), Scholarship/Research - Indiana University
  • Keisler Award for the Teaching of Composition (1997), Teaching - Indiana University Department of English

Selected Publications

  • Avery, T.P. (2013). Overcoming Matthew Arnold: Ethics in Culture and Criticism. Clio, 43(1) 103-106.
  • Avery, T.P. (2013). The Pen and the Cross: Catholicism and English Literature, 1850-2000. Religion & Literature, 45(1) 231-233.
  • Avery, T.P. (2012). Julian Bell: from Bloomsbury to the Spanish Civil War. Virginia Woolf Miscellany, (82) 27-28.
  • Avery, T.P. (2012). The BBC and National Identity in Britain, 1922-1953. Journal of British Studies, 51(4) 1052-1053.
  • Avery, T.P. (2011). Conrad in Context. English Literature in Transition, 1880-1920, 54(2) 258-261.
  • Avery, T.P. (2010). Robert Louis Stevenson in the Pacific: Travel, Empire, and the Author's Profession. English Literature in Transition 1880-1920, 53(3).
  • Avery, T.P. (2010). The Historian of the Future: Lytton Strachey and Modernist Historiography between the Two Cultures. Elh, 77(4).
  • Avery, T.P. (2010). The Real Robert Louis Stevenson. English Literature in Transition, 1880-1920, 53(3) 363-365.
  • Avery, T.P. (2009). Radio Camelot: Arthurian Legends on the BBC, 1922-2005. Journal of British Studies, 48(1).
  • Avery, T.P. (2009). The BBC Talks of E. M. Forster, 1928-1960: A Selected Edition. Modernism-Modernity, 16(4).
  • Avery, T.P. (2009). Bombay to Bloomsbury: A Biography of the Strachey Family. Journal of Historical Biography, 6 73-78.
  • Avery, T.P. (2008). Modernism on fleet street. English Literature in Transition 1880-1920, 51(1).
  • Avery, T.P. (2008). Modernism & the Popular Press. English Literature in Transition, 1880-1920, 51(1) 101-105.
  • Avery, T.P. (2006). The letters of Lytton Strachey. Modernism-Modernity, 13(1).
  • Avery, T.P. (2004). Lytton Strachey and the search for modern sexual identity: The last Eminent Victorian. Victorian Studies, 46(4).
  • Avery, T.P. (2004). This intricate commerce of souls: The origins and some early expressions of Lytton Strachey's ethics. Journal of the History of Sexuality, 13(2).
  • Avery, T.P. (2002). Three Guineas and the Aesthetic Ethics of Cultural Dissent. Virginia Woolf Miscellany, (60) 6-7.

Selected Presentations

  • The Crucifixion of Lytton Strachey - Modernist Studies Association Conference, August 2013 - Brighton,, England
  • Retro-Futurism: Online, Old School - UMass Online Zuckerberg Conference: The 21st-Century Classroom: Online and Blended Learning, April 2013 - Norwood, MA
  • Radio Modernism, February 2013 - Georgia Institute of Technology
  • Jesus Camp: Lytton Strachey Queers the Cross - Space Between Conference, June 2012 - Brown University
  • Modernism and Manuscripts and the Queer Christianity of Lytton Strachey - Faculty Research Series, March 2011 - Lowell, Massachusetts
  • Cultural Tectonics, or Why the BBC Are Afraid: Harold Nicolson and the New Spirit in Literature - MLA Convention, January 2011
  • Hilda Matheson, Emmanuel Levinas, and the Ethics of Broadcasting in a Time of Crisis. - Broadcasting in the 1930s: New Media in a Time of Crisis: A Symposium at the Conference to Mark the 50th Anniversary of the Wisconsin Centre for Theatre and Film Research, July 2010 - Madison, WI
  • The Trumpets of Autocracies and the Still, Small Voices of Civilization: Hilda Matheson, the Intimate Mode of Address, and the Rise of Nazi Radio - Modernist Studies Association Conference, April 2008 - Nashville, TN
  • Transatlantic Encounters II - Northeast Modern Language Association Convention, April 2008 - Buffalo, NY
  • Transatlantic Permutations: John Burroughs and the Arnold-Huxley Debate. - Northeast Modern Language Association Convention, April 2008 - Buffalo, NY
  • A Natural Selection: H. G. Wells and a Huxleyan Ethics of Mass Communications - Annual H. G. Wells Conference: Wells, Science, and Philosophy, September 2007 - London, England
  • Monsters, Apes, and Nightmares: Nanotechnology and Literature - University of New Hampshire K-12 Teacher Conference on Nanotechnology, April 2007 - Durham, NH
  • Nanoscience Across the Two Cultures: James Halperin's The First Immortal and Interdisciplinarity at the Center for High-Rate Nanomanufacturing, Lowell, Massachusetts - Literature and Science Area of the 2006 Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association National Conference, April 2006 - Atlanta, GA
  • Itty-Bitty Bobbleheads and Other Strange Creatures: Literature and Nanoscience Across the Two Cultures - Inaugural Conference of the British Society for Literature and Science, March 2006 - Glasgow, Scotland
  • Monsters, Apes, and Nightmares: Close Encounters in Literature and Science - Parker Public Lecture Series, March 2006 - Lowell, Massachusetts
  • Guest, February 2006 - Lowell, Massachusetts
  • - UML Interdisciplinary Seminar, March 2005 - Lowell, Massachusetts
  • - UML Honors Colloquium, February 2005 - Lowell, Massachusetts
  • A mighty big business: Baseball and Virginia Woolf's Critique of American Values - Northeast Modern Language Association Convention, March 2004 - Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
  • The girls in Europe is nuts over ball players: Ring Lardner and Virginia Woolf - Twentieth-Century Literature Conference, February 2004 - University of Louisville
  • Our lives in relation to the outside world: Virginia Woolf, John Maynard Keynes, and Utopian Visions on the Brink of War - Virginia Woolf in the Real World: The Thirteenth Annual Conference on Virginia Woolf, June 2003 - Smith College
  • Woolf as a Political Thinker - Virginia Woolf in the Real World: The Thirteenth Annual Conference on Virginia Woolf, June 2003 - Smith College
  • It's alive! Victor Frankenstein and the Quest for Immortality, March 2003 - Boston, MA
  • My Hero, Virginia Woolf, November 2002 - Lowell, Massachusetts
  • Operation Equal Good: Woolf, Chantal Mouffe, and the Ethics of Democracy in a Time of War - Virginia Woolf Across the Generations: The Twelfth Annual Conference on Virginia Woolf, June 2002 - Sonoma State University
  • In defiance of all calculation: Students Respond to Hard Times - Dickens and America: Literature, Industry, Culture., April 2002 - Lowell, Massachusetts
  • Diversity and Democracy in the Literature Classroom, April 2002 - Lowell, Massachusetts
  • The girls in Europe is nuts over ball players': Virginia Woolf Goes to Bat for Ring Lardner in Terre Haute - The Sixth Annual Conference on Baseball and Culture, March 2001 - Indiana State University
  • Talking to the Other; or, Wireless Ethics: Levinas, Woolf, and the BBC - Virginia Woolf Out of Bounds: The Tenth Annual Conference on Virginia Woolf, June 2000 - University of Maryland Baltimore County
  • I too have been of help to my country: The Dreadnought Hoax Reconsidered - Indiana University Humanities Conference, March 2000 - Indiana University
  • Ethics Replace Morality: The Victorian Legacy to Bloomsbury - Annual Conference of the Midwest Victorian Studies Association, April 1998 - St. Paul, Minnesota
  • Common Talkers: Bloomsbury at the BBC - Indiana University Humanities Conference, March 1998 - Indiana University
  • Bloomsbury at the BBC: The Ethical-Aesthetic Oppositionality of Desmond MacCarthy's Art of Reading - Twentieth-Century Literature Conference, February 1998 - University of Louisville
  • G. E. Moore and Desmond MacCarthy: Bloomsbury's Relevance to Cultural Studies Today - Indiana University Cultural Studies Conference, February 1997 - Indiana University

Selected Contracts, Fellowships, Grants and Sponsored Research

  • University of Massachusetts Lowell/University of New Hampshire/Northeastern University Center for High-Rate Nanomanufacturing Conference Grant (2007), Grant - University of Massachusetts Lowell/University of New Hampshire/Northeastern University
    Avery, T.
  • C. Everett Helm Visiting Scholar Fellowship (2005), Fellowship - Indiana University Lilly Library
  • National Science Foundation Nanoscale Science and Engineering Center for High-Rate Nanomanufacturing Seed Grant (2005), Grant - University of Massachusetts Lowell
    Avery, T.
  • University of Massachusetts Lowell Council on Diversity and Pluralism Grant (2005), Grant -
    Avery, T.
  • University of Massachusetts Lowell Provost's Grant (2005), Grant - University of Massachusetts Lowell
    Avery, T.
  • University of Massachusetts Lowell Provost's Fund Grant (2004), Grant - University of Massachusetts Lowell
    Avery, T.
  • University of Massachusetts Lowell Council on Diversity and Pluralism Seed Grant (2002), Grant - University of Massachusetts Lowell
    Avery, T.
  • Departmental Travel Grant (2000), Grant - Department of English, Indiana University
    Avery, T.
  • University of Massachusetts Lowell Healey/Research and Scholarship Grant Award (2009), Grant - University of Massachusetts Lowell
    Avery, T.
  • Healey Grant (2009), Grant - University of Massachusetts Lowell
  • University of Massachusetts President's Office Cultural Economy Grant (2007), Grant - University of Massachusetts Lowell
    Avery, T. (Co-Principal)
  • Nanotechnology, Literature, and Society (2007), Grant - University of Massachusetts Lowell, University of New Hampshire, and Northeastern University Center for High-Rate Nanomanufacturing
  • Monsters, Apes, and Nightmares (2005), Grant - National Science Foundation Nanoscale Science and Engineering Center for High-Rate Nanomanufacturing
  • University of Massachusetts Lowell Council on Diversity and Pluralism Grant (2005), Grant - University of Massachusetts Lowell Council on Diversity and Pluralism
  • University of Massachusetts Lowell Provost's Grant (2005), Grant - University of Massachusetts Lowell Provost's Office
  • University of Massachusetts Lowell Provost's Fund Grant (2004), Grant - University of Massachusetts Lowell Provost's Office
  • Departmental Travel Grant (2000), Grant - Indiana University Department of English