William R. McKelvy

William R. McKelvy is an Associate Professor of English at Washington University, specializing in Nineteenth-century British literature and culture. His research focuses on intersections of Literature and Religion, the History of Reading, and Victorian Art. He currently serves as Associate Editor of the Victorian Literature and Culture Series (University of Virginia Press) and Oxford Bibliographies: Victorian Literature. McKelvy holds a PhD from the University of Virginia and has taught courses on Victorian literature, detective fiction, and postcolonial studies.

• Education: PhD, English, University of Virginia

His scholarship includes The English Cult of Literature: Devoted Readers, 1774–1880 (2007), a seminal work in Victorian cultural studies. Recent projects explore visual culture in Victorian texts and imperial narratives. McKelvy’s work has appeared in top journals like English Literary History and Victorian Literature and Culture.

Awards include the 2007 Mentoring Award and 2002 Faculty Research Grant. He is completing a monograph on Portraits of the Artist in the Age of Steam, with earlier chapters published in 2007. McKelvy’s teaching spans from freshman seminars to graduate seminars on Victorian serial fiction and postcolonial studies.