Professor Nicola J. Watson

Professional biography

I trained at Oxford University in the literature and culture of the Romantic period, studying with Jonathan Wordsworth, Marilyn Butler, and Paul Hamilton. In 1985, I took up a Frank Knox Fellowship to Harvard University and spent four years there, before moving to Northwestern University, Chicago. Ten years later, I came back to Oxford, before joining The Open University in 1999.

Research interests

Teaching interests

I have developed undergraduate teaching material for The Open University (print, video, audio, digital, and automated) on: the literature and culture of the late eighteenth century and romantic period, nineteenth- and twentieth-century fiction, children’s literature, and travel-writing; the literary fairy tale, Shakespeare and tourism, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, William Wordsworth, Jane Austen, Byron, Thomas de Quincey, Gustave Flaubert, Virginia Woolf, Louisa M. Alcott, J.M. Barrie and Daphne du Maurier. You can see some of my work on the Royal Pavilion at Brighton on OpenLearn.

I have chaired a number of teams responsible for the development and management of courses in production and presentation including A103 (An introduction to the humanities), A207 (From Enlightenment to Romanticism c.1780-1830), A230 (Reading and studying literature), and A300 (Twentieth-century literature).  I have a strong interest in new modes of online teaching and learning, inventing short-form learning materials such as 1-minute cartoon introductions to literary theory Outside the book - OpenLearn - Open University, apps such as the Poetry Prescription Poetry Prescription - OpenLearn - Open University, and material supporting the BBC4 series The Secret Life of Books (on which I was academic consultant and an interviewee) on OpenLearn The Secret Life of Books: Series Two - OpenLearn - Open University

At postgraduate level, I have contributed material on Romanticism and on literary geography to the MA. I have supervised projects on topics ranging from Samuel Richardson, through William Blake, late eighteenth-century theatre, eighteenth-century fiction and the American wars, Charlotte Smith, mental illness and the Victorian novel, and modern children’s literature. Current students are working on railway reading in the 19C and the language of cloth and stitch in Victorian fiction.  I welcome approaches from students interested in the late eighteenth century and romantic period generally, historical fiction, travel-writing, place-writing, literary biography and afterlives, and forms of literary commemoration.

Impact and engagement

Public lectures have included: at the Stratford Shakespeare Club, Dr Johnson’s House, the Edinburgh Scott Club, the Humanities Festival at the University of Lund in Sweden; the Deutsche Shakespeare Gesellschäft in Vienna; the Humanities Festival at the University of Linköping, Sweden; Chawton House Library; the Johnson Society of London; the Oxford Italian Association; the York Festival of Ideas; The Burns Birthplace; the Sorbonne; The British Council in Paris; and the Being Human Festival 2017.  Media appearances have included slots on Woman’s Hour, a Time Team special on Poet’s Corner, Westminster Abbey, an ‘audio postcard’ from Poet’s Corner in conversation with Andrew Motion ahead of the Royal Wedding for Radio 4’s The Sunday Programme,  a programme on Oxford’s literary sites for Radio 4’s Night Waves; and BBC 4’s series The Secret Life of Books. Consultancies have most recently included BBC 4's Write Around the World with Richard E Grant (2021), Becoming Kae Tempest (2023), and Jane Austen: Rise of a Genius (2025).  An audio-visual installation based on my research was first shown at the York Festival of Ideas 2016 and restaged for at MKLitFest 2018. I have made a number of appearances at literary festivals, most recently at MKLitFest 2019. In 2012 I advised the British Library on its exhibition 'Writing Britain' and since then have acted as consultant to various tourist boards and museums on exhibition strategies, including advising the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust on the redevelopment of New Place for the anniversary of 2016.  In 2019 I founded the first and second iterations of 'The Memoir Club' which facilitates and investigates the therapeutic benefts of memoir-writing for the older writer. My work with and on writer's house museums formed the basis of an Impact Case Study for REF 2021; Coastlines is the basis for an Impact Case Study in preparation for REF 2029.

External collaborations

I have acted as advisor and collaborator on a number of funded projects to do with tourism and commemoration including: ‘Burns; The Object of Memory’ based in Edinburgh and Dundee; ‘Locating Imagination’, based at Rotterdam, ‘Shakespeare: Cultures of Commemoration’ based in Murcia, Spain, and ‘Writing Britain’s Ruins’ based in Stirling; TRAUM based in Oslo. I have acted as consultant on the redisplay of Shakespeare’s New Place for 2016 and on the projected redevelopment of Anne Hathaway's Cottage. Nowadays, I have served as Trustee of the Cowper and Newton Museum, Olney, and on the advisory board of MKLitFest. The AHRC-funded Dreaming Romantic Europe (Co-I Prof Catriona Seth, All Souls, Oxford) brings together scholarly associations and heritage organizations from across Europe to collaborate in the making of REVE (Romantic Europe: The Virtual Exhibition), a searchable virtual museum.  Coastlines is working with English Heritage, The National Trust, and various coastal literary and walking festivals.