Academic Background

I graduated from the University of the West of England in 2008, obtaining a first-class degree in English Language and Literature. After seven years away from academic studies, I completed a Masters in English Literature at the University of Warwick in 2016, passing with Distinction. My dissertation - supervised by Professor Daniel Katz - was titled "'Which Tale is the Idiot's?': 'April Seventh 1928' and the Sound and Fury of Interpretation," examining the countless readings purporting to attribute meaning to Benjy Compson’s opening narrative in William Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury, considering the relationship between text and critical debate through the distinctive lens of psychoanalysis.

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Research

I am a final year Ph.D. candidate in the Department of English and Comparative Literary Studies at the University of Warwick. My research interests primarily concern the legal cultures of the American South between 1930 and 1970; particularly, how Southern fiction portrays the problematic dilemmas inherent to law and justice in the region. Consequently, my thesis - supervised by Dr Mark Storey - considers how fictional lawyers appearing in literature of the post-war U.S. South between 1946 and 1966 uniquely focus and embody emerging narratives of race and law that characterise regional and national conflicts of the Civil Rights struggle.

The title of my thesis is "Fictions of Justice: Literary Lawyers in the American South, 1946-1966." 

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Conferences

Presentations

• 28 May 2020. "'April Seventh 1928' and the Sound and Fury of Interpretation." 3rd Faulkner Studies in the U.K. Colloquium: Faulkner, The Twenties, and Modernism. Royal Holloway, University of London (Online).
• 30 May 2019. "'Justice as he sees it': Faulkner's emerging lawyer of the post-war U.S. South." 2nd Faulkner Studies in the U.K. Colloquium. Royal Holloway, University of London.
• 23 May 2019. "'All is not well in Maycomb': The Rise and Fall of Atticus Finch."  15th Annual Postgraduate Symposium. University of Warwick.
• 24 May 2018. "'Justice as he sees it': Re-examining Gavin Stevens in William Faulkner’s Intruder in the Dust." 14th Annual Postgraduate Symposium. University of Warwick.
• 31 May 2016. "'Interpreting (with) Freud': Laplanche, Hoffmann and the Copernican Birth of Unconscious Drives."12th Annual Postgraduate Symposium. University of Warwick.

Attendance

• 28/29 May 2020. 3rd Faulkner Studies in the U.K. Colloquium: Faulkner, the Twenties, and Modernism. Royal Holloway, University of London (Online).
• 30 May 2019. 2nd Faulkner Studies in the U.K. Colloquium. Royal Holloway, University of London.
• 5 May 2017. Imperial Cultures of the United States. University of Warwick.
• 5 October 2016. "The Uncanny Re-Worlding of the American Novel: Joseph O'Neill's Netherland." Professor Donald Pease, Dartmouth College. University of Warwick.

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Publications

Academic

• "'Interpreting (with) Freud': Laplanche, Hoffmann and the Copernican Birth of Unconscious Drive." Durham University: Postgraduate English Journal, 33 (2016).

Other Published Work

• “Joffrey on the Couch.” Ultimate Game of Thrones and Philosophy: You Think or You Die. Eds. Eric Silverman and Robert Arp. Chicago: Open Court, 2016. 119-25.
• “Matthew’s Dark Side.” Downton Abbey and Philosophy: Thinking in That Manor. Eds. Adam Barkman and Robert Arp. Chicago: Open Court, 2015. 25-34.

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Memberships

• British Association for American Studies (BAAS), since 2016

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James Wills

J.Wills@warwick.ac.uk

Academic CV