About
A brief description of who you are and what you do.
This section will only display on your public profile if you’ve added content.
You can update this in Pure (opens in a new tab). Select ‘Edit profile’. Under the heading and then ‘Curriculum and research description’, select ‘Add profile information’. In the dropdown menu, select - ‘About’.
Write about yourself in the third person. Aim for 100 to 150 words covering the main points about who you are and what you currently do. Clear, simple language is best. You can include specialist or technical terms.
You’ll be able to add details about your research, publications, career and academic history to other sections of your staff profile.
Research
Research interests
- Nineteenth-century literature and culture
- Oceanic humanities
- Waste and rubbish
- Empire and post-colonial studies
- Environmental humanities
Current research
Following the publication of All at Sea in 2022, Matt has begun work on two new projects. The first, a new edition of Frederick Marryat's Mr. Midshipman Easy, has received funding from the British Academy/Leverhulme Trust. The second, provisionally titled ‘Flotsam, Jetsam, Lagan, Litter: Marine Refuse in 19th-Century Literature and Culture’, will trace the continuities and discontinuities between nineteenth-century and present-day attitudes to sea refuse, revealing the beginnings of a contemporary social, ecological, and legal problem.
Matt is on the editorial board of the Journal of Victorian Culture.
You can update the information for this section in Pure (opens in a new tab).
Research groups
Any research groups you belong to will automatically appear on your profile. Speak to your line manager if these are incorrect. Please do not raise a ticket in Ask HR.
Research interests
Add up to 5 research interests. The first 3 will appear in your staff profile next to your name. The full list will appear on your research page. Keep these brief and focus on the keywords people may use when searching for your work. Use a different line for each one.
In Pure (opens in a new tab), select ‘Edit profile’. Under the heading 'Curriculum and research description', select 'Add profile information'. In the dropdown menu, select 'Research interests: use separate lines'.
Current research
Update this in Pure (opens in a new tab). Select ‘Edit profile’ and then ‘Curriculum and research description - Current research’.
Describe your current research in 100 to 200 words. Write in the third person. Include broad key terms to help people discover your work, for example, “sustainability” or “fashion textiles”.
Research projects
Research Council funded projects will automatically appear here. The active project name is taken from the finance system.
Publications
Public outputs that list you as an author will appear here, once they’re validated by the ePrints Team. If you’re missing any outputs that you’ve added to Pure, they may be waiting for validation.
Supervision
Contact your Faculty Operating Service team to update PhD students you supervise and any you’ve previously supervised. Making this information available will help potential PhD applicants to find you.
Teaching
In the academic year 2021/22, Matt is teaching on the followng undergraduate modules:
- The Act of the Essay (first year; core module; convenor)
- American Gothic (third year; option module; convenor)
- Fantasists, Fanatics, and Reformers: British Literature in the Nineteenth Century (second year; option module; co-convenor)
- The Humanities, the Human, and the Non-Human (first year; core module)
- Victorian Feelings (second year; option module; convenor)
Matt contributes teaching to various MA courses as well.
You can update your teaching description in Pure (opens in a new tab). Select ‘Edit profile’. Under the heading and then ‘Curriculum and research description’ , select ‘Add profile information’. In the dropdown menu, select – ‘Teaching Interests’. Describe your teaching interests and your current responsibilities. Aim for 200 words maximum.
Courses and modules
Contact the Curriculum and Quality Assurance (CQA) team for your faculty to update this section.
External roles and responsibilities
These are the public-facing activities you’d like people to know about.
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You can update your external roles and responsibilities in Pure (opens in a new tab). Select ‘+ Add content’ and then ‘Activity’, your ‘Personal’ tab and then ‘Activities’. Choose which activities you want to show on your public profile.
You can hide activities from your public profile. Set the visibility as 'Backend' to only show this information within Pure, or 'Confidential' to make it visible only to you.
Biography
Matt Kerr is Associate Professor of British Literature from 1837 to 1939. Before joining Southampton in 2015, he taught at the University of Oxford, where he also completed his doctorate. Matt is a specialist in Victorian literature, with an interest in the blue humanities. He is the author of The Victorian Novel and the Problems of Marine Language: All at Sea (Oxford University Press, 2022) and co-editor of Coastal Cultures of the Long Nineteenth Century (Edinburgh University Press, 2018; paperback, 2020). New projects include a study of literature and marine waste in the nineteenth century, and a critical edition of Captain Frederick Marryat’s novel Mr Midshipman Easy. Matt is from Vancouver, Canada.
You can update your biography section in Pure (opens in a new tab). Select your ‘Personal’ tab then ‘Edit profile’. Under the heading, and ‘Curriculum and research description’, select ‘Add profile information’. In the dropdown menu, select - ‘Biography’. Aim for no more than 400 words.
This section will only appear if you enter the information into Pure (opens in a new tab).
Prizes
You can update this section in Pure (opens in a new tab). Select ‘+Add content’ and then ‘Prize’. using the ‘Prizes’ section.
You can choose to hide prizes from your public profile. Set the visibility as ‘Backend’ to only show this information within Pure, or ‘Confidential’ to make it visible only to you.