Professor Catherine Jones

Biography

I studied English as an undergraduate at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, where I also completed my PhD. I taught British and American Literature at the University of Galway (1997-99), before moving to the University of Aberdeen to hold the posts of Lecturer (2000-13),  Senior Lecturer (2013-19), and Personal Chair (2019-). I have been Director of Research for the School of Language, Literature, Music and Visual Culture (2019-22), and Programme Coordinator for the Intercalated BSc. (Hons) in Medical Sciences: Medical Humanities (2011-20).

I have held visiting posts at various institutions including the College of William and Mary (Visiting Professor of English, 2004), the Scaliger Institute, Leiden University (Visiting Fellow, supported by a Royal Society of Edinburgh / Caledonian Research Fund European Visiting Research Fellowship and a Leverhulme Trust International Academic Fellowship, 2017-18), and the Kunstkamera (Visiting Scholar, 2018). In 2022 I held a Derek Brewer Visiting Fellowship at Emmanuel College, Cambridge.

I am a Senior Fellow of the UK's Higher Education Academy (2017-). I am a past president of the Eighteenth-Century Scottish Studies Society (2014-16). I currently serve as a member of UKRI's Future Leaders Fellowships Peer Review College.

Prizes and Awards

Winner of the 2015 Book Prize of the British Association for American Studies for the best published book in American Studies in the previous year for Literature and Music in the Atlantic World, 1767-1867 (Edinburgh University Press, 2014).

Research Overview

Anglophone literature; comparative literature; literature in dialogue with other arts; early modern print and manuscript culture; eighteenth-century and Romantic studies; historical musicology; history of the Atlantic world; colonialism, war, and the growth of empire; the ‘new’ humanities (digital, environmental, medical, and public).

Current Research

I am currently writing a book on the interrelation of life-writing and portraiture in early modern Europe and Russia, focusing on the period from the 1648 Ukrainian Cossack Uprising to the end of the Napoleonic Wars (1803-1815). 

I am also working on a series of essays on literature and virtuosic piano music in the 'long' nineteenth century. I study piano -- including historical performance practices -- with Scottish pianist, Alan MacLean.

Past Research

My first monograph, Literary Memory (Bucknell University Press, 2003), examined the relationship between memory and writing in the long eighteenth century, focusing on the Waverley Novels of Walter Scott and their influence in North America. I continue to publish on Scott, particularly his treatment of Scottish history, and his influence on nineteenth-century literature, music and painting. 

My second monograph, Literature and Music in the Atlantic World, 1767-1867 (Edinburgh University Press, 2014), provided the first interdisciplinary account of the interweaving of literary and musical genres in this period of transatlantic history. It was awarded the British Association for American Studies annual book prize for the best book in American Studies. 

Collaborations

Research Collaborations

I contributed a chapter on 'King's College and Marischal College in the Age of Romanticism', for 525 Years in the Pursuit of Truth: A New History of The University of Aberdeen, edited by Bradford Bow and Michael Brown (Aberdeen University Press, 2025). My podcast, 'James Beattie (1735-1803): Philosopher and Poet', is drawn from my chapter for this volume. 

For details of other research collaborations that led to edited collections and special journal issues, see my list of publications.

Research Network Involvement

2022-24: ‘Astronomical and Medical Knowledge from the Baltic to East Central Europe, 1550-1750’, funded by the AHRC (PI: Cassie Gorman, Anglia Ruskin University)

2017-19: ‘Romantic National Song Network’, funded by the Royal Society of Edinburgh, with support from the British Library, the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, and the Society for Musicology in Ireland (PI Kirsteen McCue, University of Glasgow).

2016-17: ‘Institutions of Literature, 1700-1900’, funded by the AHRC research networking scheme (PI: Matthew Sangster, University of Glasgow)

2013-19: ‘Northern Network for Medical Humanities Research’, funded by the Wellcome Trust and the AHRC (PI: Jane Macnaughton, Durham University)

2011-13: ‘Medical Humanities Research Network Scotland’, funded by the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the Scottish Government (PI: David Shuttleton, University of Glasgow, and Gavin Millar, University of Glasgow)

2003-13: Scotland’s Transatlantic Relations Project, funded by the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland (PI: Susan Manning, University of Edinburgh)

Funding and Grants

2018: I held a Leverhulme Trust International Academic Fellowship at the Scaliger Institute, Leiden University.

2017: My research on the Edinburgh-Leiden medical nexus was supported by a grant from the Caledonian Research Foundation / the Royal Society of Edinburgh, held at the Scaliger Institute, Leiden University.

2013: I was awarded a grant from the Wellcome Trust (Humanities and Social Sciences funding area) in support of the 2013 annual conference of the Association for Medical Humanities, which was held in Aberdeen on the theme of 'Global Medical Humanities'.

2003-13: My research on literature and music in the Atlantic world was supported by grants from the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland (2003, 2009, 2012, and 2013) and the British Academy (2004-6).

Teaching Responsibilities

2024-2025

First half session

EL50C5: The Novel: Environments and Encounters (seminars)

EL40HQ: Literature and Medicine (convenor; seminars)

EL30XR: Romanticism (convenor; lectures and seminars)

Second half session

EL5920: Dissertation in Literature, Environments and Places

EL55D3: Places and Environments: Critical Dialogues

EL45HC: Literature and Music (co-convenor; seminars)

EL4502: English Dissertation (supervisions)

EL2517: Power, Equality and Empire (lectures and tutorials)