About
James Purdon is a Senior Lecturer in the School of English at the University of St Andrews, associated with the Centre for the Critical Reimagining of Human Rights, St Andrews Centre for the Receptions of Antiquity, and Centre for Contemporary Art. He holds a PhD from the University of Cambridge (2013), an MPhil (2006), and a BA (2004), all in English. His research explores intersections of 20th/21st-century literature with technology, media, and politics, with focuses on modernism, Cold War culture, and contemporary fiction.
Key publications include Modernist Informatics: Literature, Information, and the State (Oxford UP, 2016), The Art of Identification (co-edited, 2021), and Naomi Mitchison: A Writer in Time (2023). He co-edits the Technographies book series with David Trotter and Steven Connor. His work addresses themes like surveillance, identity formation, and the relationship between literature and state power.
Purdon has led projects such as 'The Cold War Writing of Naomi Mitchison' (Carnegie Trust, 2018) and an AHRC-funded seminar series on textual technologies. His contributions span peer-reviewed articles in Essays in Criticism and Modernist Cultures, alongside public writing in media outlets like the Times Literary Supplement and Observer.
