Dr Jennifer Batt

My research interests lie in eighteenth-century literature, book history and reception history, the history and practice of printing, and digital humanities. 

I'm particularly interested in the publication and reception history of eighteenth-century poetry, and in exploring how poetic culture was constructed across a range of media, including periodicals, magazines, miscellanies and pamphlets. My current book project explores the poetry that was published in eighteenth-century newspapers and magazines; this work has included collaborations with British Library Labs and with the Jean Golding Institute at the University of Bristol, and builds on my earlier work as project manager of the I'm particularly interested in the publication and reception history of eighteenth-century poetry, and in exploring how poetic culture was constructed across a range of media, including periodicals, magazines, miscellanies and pamphlets. My current book project explores the poetry that was published in eighteenth-century newspapers and magazines; this work has included collaborations with British Library Labs and with the Jean Golding Institute at the University of Bristol, and builds on my earlier work as project manager of the Digital Miscellanies Index at the University of Oxford. 

Another significant focus of my research is on women's writing of the long eighteenth century. I'm currently editing 'Lycidus' for the Cambridge University Press edition of the Works of Aphra Behn, and I'm particularly interested in the connections between her work and that of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. I have a long standing interest in labouring-class writing, and I’ve written and published on several labouring class poets, including Northamptonshire’s Mary Leapor, and the 'thresher poet' Stephen Duck. My monograph, Class, Patronage and Poetry in Hanoverian England, was published in 2020.

In 2021, together with John McTague and Rhiannon Daniels, I co-founded Bristol Common Press, a working letterpress printing studio based in the Faculty of Arts. Funded by the UKRI World Class Laboratories scheme, Bristol Common Press houses a working full-size replica of an eighteenth-century common press; two nineteenth century Albion presses; and a significant quantity of wood and metal type. We are always looking for ways to push the research potential of this space; this has included our 2021 Brigstow Institute project 'How to Open a Print Shop', and 'Four Sheets to the Wind', our current, experimental and collaborative printing project, funded by the UKRI Participatory Research Fund.

I was a co-founder and co-director of the Centre for Material Texts (2017-22); I'm now an active member of the Centre for Creative Technologies (2022-) 

Research Supervision

I would welcome applications relating to the long eighteenth century, and particularly invite those focused on poetry, women’s writing, labouring-class writing, book history, or printing history.

Teaching

Undergraduate units I teach on include:

Literature 1550-1740
Literature 1740-1900
Eighteenth-Century Women’s Writing
Writing the Working Classes