Sawyers Building
0845 196 3501
peter.cook@anglia.ac.uk

Qualifications & Memberships

• BA (Hons)
• MA (Dist)
• Cert FE
• PG Cert HE

• Higher Education Academy

Courses

• Pathway Leader, PGCE Art and Design

Outline of Career

Peter spent ten years in Africa and the Middle East, where he taught literature in universities, and learned the art of pottery from traditional craftspeople. On returning to England he worked as a studio potter for some years, but was gradually drawn back to university teaching and research.

His interests are broad: he has published work on the English romantic poets, written a thesis on the potter Michael Cardew and his Abuja Pottery, and has an abiding fascination with children's literature and its illustration. Peter was instrumental in founding the Centre for Children's Book Studies at Anglia Ruskin University.

Research Interests

• Notions of Childhood in Literature and Art, 1770 - the present
• Romanticism and its Legacy

Selected publications

Research Paper: Poets in the Making: Ted Hughes, Children and Poetry, to be presented at the international conference 'Poetry and Childhood at the British Library, London (in association with the Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge), April 20-21 2009.

Article: The Scholar-Gipsy: Matthew Arnold, Autonomy and the University, accepted for publication in Alif: Journal of Comparative Poetics No. 29, 2009 (Alif is a refereed journal published by the Department of English and Comparative Literature at the American University in Cairo; it is available on jstor).

Research paper: Hey! Teacher! Leave Those Kids Alone! The Teacher in Rock Music, presented at the conference 'The Teacher: Image, Icon, Identity', University of Glasgow, July 2-4 2008.

Research paper: Go Ask Alice: the Image of the Child in the 60s Counterculture, presented at the 'International Perspectives on Illustration' conference, Roehampton University, November 10 2007. Included in the book 'What Do You See? International Perspectives on Illustration', Cambridge Scholars Press, November 2008.

Research paper: The Olympians: Neglect and Imagination in late-Victorian and Edwardian Literature, presented at the 'Acts of Reading' conference, Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge, 19-20 April 2007. Accepted for publication in the book 'Acts of Reading', Trentham Press, March 2009.

Research paper: The work of Art in the Age of Digital Reproduction: Walter Benjamin, Past and Present, presented at Greyfriars College, Colchester, November 2003.

Postgraduate Dissertation: The Cardew Experience: An Investigation of The Teaching Methods Developed by Michael Cardew for the Pottery Training Centre, Abuja, Nigeria, Anglia Ruskin University, June 2001.