Department of English

Jack Quirk

M.A. English, Brown University, 2022., M.A. Literary and Cultural Studies, Carnegie Mellon University, 2018., B.A. English (Hons), University of Melbourne, 2013., B.A. English, University of Western Australia, 2012., L.L.B. University of Western Australia, 2012.
Jack_Quirk@brown.edu
Research Interests Colonial and Postcolonial Studies, Literary and Cultural Theory, Studies in the Novel, 20th-Century and Contemporary, Law and Literature, Jurisprudence, Race and Ethnicity, Legal Theory, Social Epistemology

Biography

I work on the Anglophone novel with a particular interest in global modernisms, law, and novel history and theory. My dissertation “Entitled: How the Novel Thinks Right,” explores the impact of evolving legal concepts of personhood on literary form through the twentieth century. I am currently an Assistant Editor for Novel: A Forum on Fiction.

Publications

“Color Bar Forms in Sam Selvon’s Windrush Novels.” The Place of Race in Law and Literature, special issue of European Journal of English Studies (forthcoming).

“Gerald Murnane's Terra Nullius.” Modern Fiction Studies (forthcoming).

“Postcolonial Studies.” In Elgar Encyclopedia of Law and Literature, edited by Simon Stern and Robert Spoo (forthcoming, 2024).

“The Potentiality of Paralysis in Joyce’s ‘Counterparts.’” Journal of Modern Literature, vol. 45, no. 2, 2022, pp. 136–57.

Review of Modernism and the Meaning of Corporate Persons, by Lisa Siraganian. Law, Culture and the Humanities, vol. 18, no. 1, 2022, pp. 252–55. 

“Adverse Possessions: Legal Representation and the Settler-Colonial Image.” Modernism/Modernity Print Plus, September 23, 2021. Web. 

Review of Metaphors of Confinement: The Prison in Fact, Fiction, and Fantasy, by Monika Fludernik. Law, Culture, and the Humanities, vol. 16, no. 3, October 2020, pp. 501-503. Print.

Review of A Death of One’s Own: Literature, Law, and the Right to Die, by Jared Stark. Law & Literature, vol. 32, no. 2, March 2020, pp. 303–6. Web.

(with Julian R. Murphy) “Whose Country? Colonialism and the Rule of Law in Sweet Country and Charlie’s Country.” Law, Lawyers and Justice: Through Australian Lenses, edited by Kim D. Weinert et al., Routledge, 2020, pp. 42–58. Print.

 

Teaching

As Instructor

ENGL 0200D Literature and the Social Contract (S22)

ENGL 0900 Critical Reading and Writing (F21)  

As Teaching Assistant

ENGL0511C Fantastic Places, Unhuman Humans (S21)

ENGL0101A Independence and Modern Literature (F20)

Awards

Albert Spaulding Cook Prize in Comparative Literature (“Literary Entitlement”), 2024

Rebecca Summerhays Graduate Student Essay Prize, 2024

English Graduate Student Essay Prize, 2021