Phyllis Weliver

Phyllis Weliver, Professor of English at Saint Louis University's College of Arts and Sciences, specializes in Victorian literature and interdisciplinary music-literature studies. Her research spans Victorian salons, poetics, and cultural intersections of music, science, and gender. A D. Phil graduate, she has been twice funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities (2005, 2015) and holds a lifetime fellowship at Gladstone’s Library.

• Key Research Areas: Victorian Liberalism, 19th-century British poetry, East-West cultural exchanges, and medical humanities.
• Awards: 2024 H. Robert Cohen/RIPM Award, Macgeorge Fellow at University of Melbourne (2024), Visiting Research Fellow at University of Cambridge (2020).

Her memoir The Arrow Tree: Healing from Long COVID (2021) uniquely bridges academic rigor with personal narrative, exploring ecology, naturopathy, and indigenous practices in recovery. She has lectured internationally at institutions like the British Academy and contributed to BBC Radio 3.

• Recent Publications: Reading Texts in Music and Literature of the Long Nineteenth Century (2025, co-edited), Introduction: A Discursive Duet (2022), and Wanting More: Oliver Twist as Beggar’s Opera (2022).

Scientific Recognition: National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow (2015, 2005), Gladstone’s Library Fellow (2011), and Macgeorge Fellow (2024). Her work has been reviewed in Music & Letters and Journal of Liberal History, with critical attention to her interdisciplinary methodologies.