Richard Marggraf Turley

Richard Marggraf Turley holds a Personal Chair as Professor in the Department of English & Creative Writing at Aberystwyth University, where he has been an active faculty member since 1994. He teaches undergraduate and postgraduate modules including Romantic Eroticism (EN38320), Literatures of Surveillance (EN35320), and Romanticism's Radical Cultures (ENM2540), while supervising PhD candidates in both Literary Studies and Creative Writing.

Educated with a BA and PhD from the University of Leeds, his scholarly foundation in Romantic literature informs his dual career as critic and creative writer. His academic profile shows continuous research output since 1994 with 61 publications, including books on Keats, food studies, and creative writing pedagogy.

Turley's research centers on Romantic-era poetry with pioneering work on literary topology, food representation, and surveillance theory. He has authored Keats's Boyish Imagination (2004), Bright Stars: John Keats, Barry Cornwall and Romantic Literary Culture (2009), and co-written Food and the Literary Imagination (2014). His forthcoming 2026 monograph Fantastic Shapes: Topology and Textuality in Romantic Poetry extends his spatial analysis of Romantic texts. As an award-winning poet, he published the Wales Book of the Year-winning collection Wan Hu's Flying Chair (2009) and the crime novel The Cunning House (2015), demonstrating his commitment to creative practice.

Analysis of his 15 most recent publications reveals persistent engagement with Keatsian studies while expanding into interdisciplinary terrain. His work increasingly intersects with sustainability (via food/watermill projects), biometrics (The Quantified Romantics), and digital surveillance, showing how Romantic poetry offers frameworks for contemporary crises. The recurring focus on spatial theory across 2018-2023 outputs demonstrates his unique topology approach.

His scientific awards reflect both scholarly and creative excellence:

• Keats-Shelley Prize for Poetry (First Prize, 2008)
• Wales Book of the Year 'People's Choice' Award (2010) for Wan Hu's Flying Chair
• ASLE/Inspire UKI Prize Essay (First Prize, 2013) shared with Archer and Thomas

Turley supervises PhD students in Literary Studies and Creative Writing with 10 supervised works recorded. His grant capture includes externally funded projects like 'The Quantified Romantics: Arts and Biometrics' (2015, Arts and Humanities Research Council) exploring biometric analysis of Romantic poetry, and 'Edible Wales: Sustenance and locality' (2014, Creative Exchange Wales Network) investigating food sustainability through literary lenses. These grants demonstrate his successful bridging of humanities with scientific and social contexts.

As Co-Director of the Keats Foundation International Keats Conference, he leads a major scholarly initiative, organizing annual conferences through 2025. His collaborative Arts-Science projects include BBC appearances and cross-disciplinary work with biometric researchers, while his role in the 'Supervised Work (10)' metric confirms active mentorship. Public engagement via 12 press/media contributions (including Netflix adaptation commentary) shows his commitment to translating academic work for broader audiences.