Staff Profile

I was awarded my PhD in Romantic-era literature. Funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, this project comprised a chronological study of Percy Bysshe Shelley's prose writings, ranging from his earliest pamphlet, The Necessity of Atheism (1811), to his final major essay, A Defence of Poetry (1821). Exploring the ways in which Shelley's writing engages with eighteenth and early nineteenth-century political economy, it argued that his fascination with economic affairs shapes, as well as is influenced by, his inclusive definition of Poetry. Contrary to his reputation as a idealistic, or even escapist poet, my thesis presented Shelley as an economic theorist in his own right.

My current work focuses upon questioning Romantic hostility towards the mathematical and demographic methods of political economy, drawing attention to the ways in which the writings of Adam Smith, Jeremy Bentham, Thomas Robert Malthus, and David Ricardo contain imaginative propensities. My broader research interests include Romanticism and genre, utilitarian ethics and economics, and the philosophies of the Scottish Enlightenment. I am particularly interested in the ways in which economic discourse in this period can be viewed as a literary, as well as social or political form.

I was funded by the British Association for Romantic Studies to undertake manuscript research in The British Library and University College London, focusing on the correspondence between Bentham, Mill, Malthus, and Ricardo. I was also granted permission by the Bodleian Library, University of Oxford, to access Shelley's intermediate draft of his Defence, as part of my work on re-evaluating the poet's economic worldview.

Between July 2019 and January 2020 I was a Teaching Fellow in Eighteenth-Century Literature at Newcastle University. Since January 2020 I have been a Lecturer in Eighteenth-Century Literature at Newcastle University. At present I teach eighteenth-century, Romantic-era, and Victorian literature, and am writing a monograph that focuses on the role of imagination in political economy from its origins in the Scottish Enlightenment to its rise as an utilitarian science.

Throughout 2022 and 2023, I was Project Lead for Economic Humanities, funded by a Pioneer Award from the Newcastle University Humanities Research Institute (NUHRI). This award supported '(Re)Imagining Value: An Interdisciplinary Symposium', in May 2023.

I am a referee for The Review of Politics (University of Notre Dame, Cambridge University Press) and the Independent Social Research Foundation's First Book Grant competition. I am also a reviewer for The Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies,The Gaskell Journal, and the Routledge 'Economics' series.

Qualifications

Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (SFHEA) (2024)

PhD in English Literature (2013)

MLitt in English Literature (2008)

BA (Hons) English Literature (2007)

Introduction to Learning and Teaching in Higher Education Certificate (Part A) (2009)

Publications

Essays

Leanne Stokoe and Johannes Heim. "Precarity and Progression: Reflections of a Part-Time Teaching Staff Co-ordinator." The Institute of English Studies (School of Advanced Study, University of London, 2022).

Leanne Stokoe. "'The Vile Ingredients' of 'the Wholesome Mixture': A Portrait of Bernard Mandeville and Adam Smith". The Integrity Project (British Academy, 2015).

Book Reviews and Review Essays

Leanne Stokoe. Review of Victorian Fictions of Middle-Class Status. Forms of Absence in the Age of Reform by Albert D. Pionke, The Gaskell Journal, Vol. 37, (December 2023): 73-76.

Leanne Stokoe. Review of Romanticism and the Gold Standard: Money, Literature and Economic Debate in Britain, 1720-1830 by Alexander Dick, The Review of English Studies, 65 (272) (November 2014): 943-945.

Leanne Stokoe. Review of Percy Bysshe Shelley: A Biography by James Bieri, The Journal for Eighteenth Century Studies, Vol. 3, Issue 1 (March 2010): 121-2. 

Research Groups and School Committees 

Project Lead for Economic Humanities (NUHRI)

Co-organiser of the North East Research Group for Commerce and Culture (NECC)

Athena Swan Self Assessment Team (SAT)

Memberships 

The Keats-Shelley Memorial Association (KSMA)

British Association for Romantic Studies (BARS)

Centre for Nineteenth-Century Studies (CNCS)

Portraits of Integrity Reading Group (British Academy)

The North East Forum in Eighteenth-Century and Romantic Studies

Republican Reading Group 

Editorial Boards 

The Review of Politics (referee)

The Review of English Studies (reviewer)

The Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies (reviewer)

The Gaskell Journal (reviewer)

The Independent Social Research Foundation First Book Grant (reviewer)

Routledge Economics Books (reviewer)

Public Engagement 

Leanne Stokoe. 'The Bard may die, the Thresher survive': The labouring-class poetry of Stephen Duck and Mary Collier.

Public lecture presented to the Newcastle Corn Riots Project (Heaton History Group), 26 May 2021 (funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund, the Joicey Trust and Newcastle City Council).

Awards

2025-26: Leverhulme Lectureship in the Literature of the Long Eighteenth Century

2025: Vice-Chancellor's 'Celebrating Success' Event: Senior Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy

2024: HASS Academic Review Award (outstanding ability, responsibilities, performance, and contribution) 

2024: 'Outstanding Contribution to Academic Support', The Education Awards (TEAs) (Nominee)

2022-23: Newcastle University Humanities Research Institute Pioneer Award: Project Lead for Economic Humanities to fund '(Re)Imagining Value: An Interdisciplinary Symposium'.

2022: Vice-Chancellor's 'Celebrating Success' Event: Athena Swan Bronze Award Renewal.

2022: 'Outstanding Contribution to Academic Support', The Education Awards (TEAs) (Nominee)

2020-21: Mid-Career Return Fund Lectureship

2020: 'Outstanding Contribution to Teaching (HASS)', The Education Awards (TEAs) (Nominee)

2019-20: Teaching Fellowship in Eighteenth-Century Literature

2019: SELLL Strategic Fund, awarded as co-organiser of the North East Research Group for Commerce and Culture.

2013: AHRC Collaborative Skills Award made to the North East Postgraduate Research Group for the Long Nineteenth Century (NENC) to fund 'Cultivating Community: A Case Study of Lord Armstrong and the Victorian North East'.

2012: British Society for Literature and Science (BSLS) Small Grants Scheme, awarded as co-organiser for the NENC 'Moving Towards Science in the Long Nineteenth Century' symposium.

2010: British Association for Romantic Studies Stephen Copley Postgraduate Award.

2008: Arts and Humanities Research Council Full Doctoral Award (Open Competition).

Current School Leadership Roles

Combined Honours Subject Advisor (Literature and Creative Writing)

Past School Leadership Roles

Part-Time Teaching Staff Co-ordinator (Literature and Creative Writing) (2021-2023)

School and Faculty Committees

Combined Honours Board of Studies

SELLL Board of Studies

Education Forum

Current Teaching

Postgraduate Supervision

MLitt in English Literature (internal examiner)

MLitt in Philosophy (second supervisor)

PhD Annual Progress Reviewer (Eighteenth-Century and Romantic-era Literature)

Undergraduate Teaching

SEL3420: Fiction and the Philosophy of Terror: From the Supernatural to the Sublime (Module Leader)

SEL3377: Dissertation in English Literature and History

SEL3362: Dissertation in English Literature

SEL2210: Independent Research Project (Module Leader 2021-23)

SEL2203: Revolutionary Britain, 1789-1832

SEL1034: Beginnings

Past Teaching

Postgraduate Teaching

SEL8047: MA Dissertation (2020-2021)

SEL8533: Radicalisms (2019-2023; Module Leader 2019-21)

Undergraduate Teaching

SEL3373: Women of Virtue and Women of Pleasure: Sensibility in the Age of Reason (2018-2021; Module Leader 2019-21)

SEL2202: Writing New Worlds, 1688-1789 (2018-2023)

SEL1030: Approaches to Reading (2015-2016)

SEL2204: Victorian Passions, Victorian Values (2011-2017)

SEL3017: Women's Writing, 1720-1820 (2009-2010)

SEL1003 and SEL1004: Introduction to Literary Studies I and II (2009-2017)

Wider Faculty Teaching and Student Recruitment

SELLL and Combined Honours Open Day Representative

PARTNERS Summer School Seminar Leader (Romantic Poetry and Revolution)

SELLL Year 12 and 13 Visit Days: Introduction to Gothic Literature (2022-23)

Higher Education and Students Conference: Studying English Literature at University (2021-22)

School of Modern Languages Examiner for International Student Streaming Tests (2015-2019)

Semester 1 Office Hours

Tuesdays 1-2pm and Wednesdays 1-3pm

(Room 1.14, 1st Floor, Percy Building).

I am also able to arrange Zoom meetings via request.