Ian Campbell Ross, Cav. dell’Ordine della Stella d’Italia, B.A. (Sus), M.A. (Dub), Ph.D. (Edin), F.T.C.D.

Ian Campbell Ross held a personal chair as Professor of Eighteenth-Century Studies until his retirement in 2012; he is now a Fellow Emeritus of the College. 

Among his publications on Irish and British writing of the long eighteenth century are Laurence Sterne: a life (OUP, 2001), and a critical edition of Sterne’s The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman (1983; new ed. with new introduction, OUP, 2009). He contributed ‘Irish Fiction before 1800’ to the Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing (1991) and ‘Prose to 1800’ to the Cambridge History of Irish Literature (2006). A co-General Editor of the Early Irish Fiction series (Four Courts Press), he has co-edited the anonymously authored Vertue Rewarded (2010), Sarah Butler, Irish Tales (2010), and Elizabeth Sheridan, The Triumph of Prudence over Passion (2011). His publications on Jonathan Swift and Tobias Smollett include a co-edited volume, Locating Swift (1998), Swift’s Ireland (1985) and the chapter on Smollett in the Edinburgh History of Scottish Literature (2006).

Editor and principal contributor to Public Virtue, Public Love: the early years of the Dublin Lying-in Hospital, the Rotunda (1986), he was co-founder of the Eighteenth-Century Ireland Society (ECIS, 1985-) and of its journal, Eighteenth-Century Ireland (1986-), which he co-edited for 10 years. More recently, he founded, and remains Convenor of, the Eighteenth-Century Literature Research Network in Ireland (2006-), linking all interested teachers and students of eighteenth-century literature throughout the island of Ireland.

Professor Ross taught English literature from Chaucer to the present day and has published on American and European literatures from the seventeenth to twenty-first centuries. He is editor of Henry James, The Europeans (1985) in the Oxford World’s Classics series, and has published essays and articles on writers from Voltaire to Italo Calvino. HIs sophister option, ‘Detective Fiction’ was the first course of its kind in Ireland and introduced Popular Literature to the School of English. An introduction to Declan Burke (ed), Down these Green Streets: Irish Crime Writing in the 21st Century (2011) was the first overview of Irish crime fiction from 1840 to the present day. Together with the historian Professor William Meier (TCU), he is currently co-editing a special number of Éire-Ireland, devoted to crime in Ireland since 1921.

Along with colleagues from history and Irish, Ian Ross was a founder of the Centre for Irish-Scottish and Comparative Studies, and chaired the international steering committee of the Irish-Scottish Academic Initiative. He is a member of the advisory board of the Journal for Irish and Scottish Studies, as also of Irish University Review, and Eighteenth-Century Ireland.

Ian Campbell Ross is Co-Editor for Irish Writing in English for the online Literary Encyclopedia. He welcomes proposals for contributions from both established and young scholars in the field.

Since his retirement, Professor Ross has continued to supervise PhD students and mentor IRC postdoctoral fellows on an honorary basis, on topics ranging from the 17th-century essay, through the 18th-century literary salon, early-19th century Irish Gothic, and Golden Age detective fiction, 1920-45. Former graduate students now hold, or have held, teaching posts in universities in Ireland, Scotland, England, the US, Egypt, and the Middle East. He is unable to accept further prospective graduate students.

Editor and translator of Gian Gaspare Napolitano, To War with The Black Watch (2007), Professor Ross has been a visiting professor at the Università degli Studi, Roma Tre, where he is also a membro aggregato of the Centro di ricerca interdipartimentale per gli studi irlandesi e scozzesi. In 2007 the President of Italy honoured him as a Cavaliere dell’Ordine della Stella della Solidarietà Italiana (now Ordine della Stella d’Italia).

Ian Campbell Ross’s most recent book is Umbria: a cultural guide (Volumnia, 2012), a revised and updated edition of Umbria: a cultural history (Viking, 1996). He is currently preparing a critical edition of William Chaigneau, The History of Jack Connor.

Links

Eighteenth-Century Ireland Society/Cumann Éire san Ochtú Céad Deag:
http://www.ecis.ie/

Eighteenth-Century Ireland/Iris an dá chultúr:
http://www.ecis.ie/journal_4.html

Eighteenth-Century Literature Research Network in Ireland (ECLRNI):
http://www.eclrni.com/

Literary Encyclopedia:
http://www.litencyc.com/

Éire-Ireland. Special number on crime in Ireland since 1921. Call for papers:
http://h-net.msu.edu/cgi-bin/logbrowse.pl?trx=vx&list=H-Albion&month=1209&week=c&msg=n9jjwZUflQPREqF9j1N4Bw

Contact:
Ian Campbell Ross
icross@tcd.ie