Professor Sarah Annes Brown

Sarah Brown is a Professor of English Literature whose research interests range from Ovid and Shakespeare to the Victorian novel and modern science fiction.

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Background

Much of Sarah’s research focuses on patterns of influence and allusion.

Her first book, The Metamorphosis of Ovid: From Chaucer to Ted Hughes (1999), traced the presence of Ovid’s Metamorphoses in English literature, and she has returned to the reception of classical texts in several subsequent publications, including Tragedy in Transition (2007) and A Familiar Compound Ghost: Allusion and the Uncanny (2012).

Shakespeare is another key focus of her research, and she has published widely on both his sources and his influence on later literature.

Sarah is Co-Director of the Anglia Ruskin Centre for Science Fiction and Fantasy. She has a particular interest in the intersection between science fiction and 'canonical' literature, and has written several pieces on the influence of classical literature on the genre.

She has served as a judge of the Arthur C. Clarke Award (2014-15), and is Secretary of the Science Fiction Foundation. Her most recent monograph is Shakespeare and Science Fiction (Liverpool University Press, 2021).

Research interests

• Science fiction
• The influence of Ovid
• Myth in literature
• Shakespeare: sources and creative reception
• The Victorian novel
• Tragedy

Areas of research supervision

• Science fiction
• Shakespeare
• Renaissance literature
• Myth in literature

Teaching

BA (Hons) English Literature. Shakespeare and Performance.

Qualifications

• PhD, University of Bristol
• MA Medieval English, University of Bristol
• BA English, University of Bristol

Memberships, editorial boards

• British Comparative Literature Association
• British Shakespeare Association
• Science Fiction Foundation

Selected recent publications

Brown, S.A.2021. Shakespeare and Science Fiction. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press.

Brown, S.A. 2019. 'Is this the promised end?' Shakespeare and Post-Apocalyptic Science Fiction. Foundation, 134.

Brown, S.A., 2017. Shakespeare and Myth. In The Routledge Research Companion to Shakespeare and the Classics, eds Sean Keilen and Nick Moschovakis. London: Routledge.

Brown, S.A. The Classical Pantheon and Modernity in Modern Fantasy. In Classical Traditions in Modern Fantasy, eds Brett M. Rogers, Benjamin Stevens. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Brown, S.A., 2015. Shakespeare and Thomas Underdowne's Theseus and Ariadne. Review of English Studies, 66.

Brown, S.A., 2014. Allusion in Averill Curdy’s Song & Error. Studies in the Literary Imagination.

Brown, S.A. and Taylor, A., 2013. Ovid in English (1) Metamorphoses. London: MHRA.

Brown, S.A., 2012. Science fiction and classical reception in contemporary women's writing. Classical Receptions Journal, 14 (2).

Brown, S.A., 2012. A Familiar Compound Ghost: Allusion and the Uncanny. Manchester: Manchester University Press.