Sean O'Toole

Sean O'Toole is a professor of English at Baruch College, CUNY, affiliated with the Weissman School of Arts and Sciences. His expertise spans nineteenth-century British and Anglophone literatures, queer theories, and writing studies. A graduate of Georgetown University (B.A.) and CUNY Graduate Center (Ph.D.), he previously lectured in Princeton's Writing Program before joining Baruch in 2008.

O'Toole’s research focuses on transnational decadence, queer formalism, and Victorian narrative structures. He is the author of Dorian Unbound: Transnational Decadence and the Wilde Archive (2023), Habit in the English Novel, 1850-1900 (2013), and a Norton edition of The Picture of Dorian Gray (2024). His work connects queer identity with literary form and historical context.

Key research areas:

• Queer theory in Victorian literature
• Decadence and aestheticism
• Anglo-Irish cultural intersections
• Epistolary analysis
• Material culture in fiction
• Intertextuality and classical influences

Scientific honors:

• Mid-Career Faculty Fellowship (2019)
• NEH Summer Seminar participant (2012)
• Paul Monette Prize for Gay/Lesbian Studies (2006)
• Phi Beta Kappa (1994)

O'Toole teaches courses in British and Irish literature, nineteenth-century novels, world literature, and writing.