John Peters, Ph.D. | Department of English

John Peters, Ph.D.

Distinguished Research Professor
940-565-2679
Office: 
115 Auditorium

John Peters is the author of Joseph Conrad's Critical Reception (Cambridge 2013), a history of the commentary on Conrad, which was 2nd runner-up for the tri-annual Adam Gillon Book Award in Conrad Studies, and Conrad and Impressionism (Cambridge 2001), which considers Joseph Conrad's works in light of the epistemological underpinning of impressionism. Conrad and Impressionism was selected as a Choice Outstanding Academic Title for 2001 and was runner-up for the Adam Gillon Book Award. He is also author of The Cambridge Introduction to Joseph Conrad (2006) and editor of A Historical Guide to Joseph Conrad (Oxford 2010), Conrad in the Public Eye (Rodopi 2008), Conrad's Drama (Brill 2019), Joseph Conrad's Under Western Eyes (Broadview 2010), Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness (Broadview 2019), volume two of Joseph Conrad: The Contemporary Reviews (Cambridge 2012), and the Norton Critical Edition of Joseph Conrad's The Secret Sharer and Other Stories (2015). He is translator of Takamura Kōtarō's book The Chieko Poems (Green Integer 2007) and received a Literature Fellowship from the National Endowment of the Arts to translate Takamura's book Journey. His articles have appeared in such journals as Studies in Short Fiction, Studies in the Novel, Philosophy and Literature, College Literature, English Language Notes, English Literature in Transition, Victorian Review, and Modern Fiction Studies. He is a past President of the Joseph Conrad Society of America and current General Editor of Conradiana, the oldest journal in Conrad studies, for which he received the Council of Editors of Learned Journals Phoenix Award for 2017. He has received the Joseph Conrad Society of America's highest honor, the Ian Watt Prize for Excellence in Conrad Scholarship and was First Runner-Up for the Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences in America's Wacław Lednicki Award for Excellence in the Humanities for 2020. Conrad and Nature (an essay collection co-edited with Lissa Schneider-Rebozo and Jeffrey Mathis McCarthy) was recently selected as Co-Winner of the Adam Gillon Book Award in Conrad Studies, and his Conrad's Drama received an Honorable Mention in the same competition. John Peters has also received the President's Council University Service Award for 2016, the Toulouse Graduate School's Toulouse Scholar Award for 2020, the Office of Research and Innovation's Research Leadership Award for 2020, and the UNT Foundation's Eminent Faculty Award for 2018, the university's highest honor. Finally, a November 20, 2017 article in The New Yorker magazine refers to him as "the leading American Conradian." His main areas of interest are Conrad studies, British Modernism, Victorian literature, American Modernism, and Japanese translation. Along with his translation of Takamura's book Journey, he is currently working on a book project on the aesthetics of perception in the works of Oscar Wilde and another book project on silence in the works of Joseph Conrad.

2018 Eminent Faculty Award: https://research.unt.edu/article/2018-salute-faculty-excellence?inhouse=...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Toaoa_dvhts&t=8s

https://northtexan.unt.edu/issues/2018-fall/conrad-expert