Dr Jonathan Gibson

Professional biography

I am a specialist in early modern literature and book history, particularly manuscript culture of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Before joining the Open University in February 2013, I worked at the English Subject Centre, Royal Holloway, University of London, a national body that organised activities and published material in support of the teaching of English Literature, English Language and Creative Writing at university level. I was educated at St. John’s College, Oxford and University College London and have held lectureships at the University of Exeter, Durham University and Queen Mary, University of London. My first academic job was a post as Research Assistant to Professor Derek Brewer at Emmanuel College, Cambridge. For several years, I was a Research Fellow at the Perdita Project  (first at The Nottingham Trent University, then latterly at the University of Warwick), a pioneering Digital Humanities project dedicated to the recovery and detailed description of early modern women's manuscript writing.

Research interests

I have published research on many different early modern topics, including Ralegh, Wroth, Shakespeare, Philip Sidney, Spenser, translation, the protocols of early modern letter-writing, codicology and Elizabethan fiction. For the last few years, much of my research has focused on the materiality of early modern manuscripts. Over the past few years, I have analysed Elizabeth I's love letters to the Duke of Anjou, discussed the influence of Renaissance hand-writing manuals on Elizabethan and Jacobean manuscripts, surveyed verse miscellanies in print and manuscript, and reviewed Sir Robert Cecil's comments on his son's handwriting. My most recent article identifies points in the manuscript of Lucy Hutchinson's life of her husband John Hutchinson where pages have been removed (The Seventeenth Century 38.3). With Carlo Bajetta (University of the Valle d'Aosta), I am general editor of the new Oxford University Press edition of the complete works of Sir Walter Ralegh, and a contributing editor on the ongoing Oxford University Press edition of the works of Lucy Hutchinson, for which I have written the manuscript descriptions.

I am a member of the Open University’s Medieval and Early Modern Research Group and of its Book History and Bibliography Research Group. I have organised two series of research seminars for the Book History group:  Paper, Pen and Ink: Manuscript Cultures in Early Modern England (2012-13) and Paper, Pen and Ink 2: Manuscript Cultures in the Age of Print (2014-15).

I have supervised three Ph.D. theses to completion at the OU: on Freudian approaches to ​A Midsummer Night's Dream​, on schools outreach at Shakespeare's Globe in London, and on terrorism and early modern drama. 

I would welcome Ph.D. applications on early modern topics, particularly the following: sixteenth- and seventeenth-century manuscript culture (particularly letters, miscellanies and poetry); Sir Walter Ralegh; Elizabeth I; editing; early modern book history; Elizabethan and Jacobean literature.

Teaching interests

I am currently Chair of the level 2 module A233 Telling Stories: The Novel and Beyond, for which I wrote material on Hardy and Shakespeare. I am deputy chair of the new level 2 module A240 Literature Matters, for which I edited Book 1 and wrote a unit on More's Utopia. I wrote material on Milton and Anne Southwell for A893, the OU's MA in English Literature. Previously, I was Chair of the level 3 module  A334 English Literature from Shakespeare to Austen. During the production of A334, I was Part 1 chair and module deputy chair and wrote for Book 1 on As You Like It, Othello and Petrarchist poetry. I was deputy chair for A334's predecessor, AA306 Shakespeare: Text and Performance. I have worked for the OU on validation and PhD viva panels and as an academic reviewer. I have written extensively on pedagogical topics, in particular assessment and inclusive teaching. 

Impact and engagement

In April 2012 I co-organised Describing, Analysing and Identifying Early Modern Handwriting: Methods and Interests, a one-day conference at Merton College, Oxford. In 2014 I was Academic Consultant for the app developed alongside the award-winning BBCTV series The Secret Life of Books. In October 2018 I co-organised Sir Walter Ralegh: A Quadricentennial Symposium at Senate House in London to mark the anniversary of Ralegh's execution. 

International links

My research on Elizabeth I's love letters was undertaken under the auspices of 'Writing Abroad', an EU-funded project based at the Università della Valle d‟Aosta in Italy. I co-edited the book that resulted from this project, along with colleagues in Italy and France, Carlo Bajetta and Guillaume Coatalen. With Carlo Bajetta, I am currently working as general editor of a new critical edition of the complete works of  Sir Walter Ralegh for Oxford University Press. I am currently Academic Reviewer for the English programme at the American College of Thessaloniki in Greece, an OU partner institution.