Jamie Callison
Associate Professor / Department Coordinator
Email: jamie.callison@nord.no
Phone: +47 75 51 77 92
Office: Bodø Main Campus, E309
Education
- Ph.D., University of Northampton & University of Bergen (2016)
- P.G.C.E., University College London (2012)
- M.A. (Theology), Heythrop College, University of London (2011)
- M.A. (English)., Trinity College, University of Cambridge (2007)
Academic Appointments
- Associate Professor, Nord University (2017-)
- Research Fellow, Oxford Centre for Christianity and Culture, Regent’s Park College, University of Oxford (2015-2016)
- Visiting Scholar, Editorial Institute, University of Boston (2014-2015)
- Assistant Professor, University of Bergen (2013-2014)
Areas of Interest
Modernism; Poetry; Performance; Religion & Literature; Religious Culture; Lived Religion; Post-Secular Theory; Archival Studies; Literary Editing
Dr Jamie Callison is Associate Professor, Coordinator of the English Department, Campus Bodø and Cross-Campus Coordinator for English at Nord University.
He has an interest in literary editing, which is represented by his critical edition (with Thomas Goldpaugh) of the modernist poet David Jones’s previously unpublished poem, The Grail Mass. Jones’s published work moves between prose and poetry in ways that can be problematic. This edition not only reconstructs an otherwise lost work but also sets as verse text rendered in earlier editions as prose and in doing so makes a distinct argument about Jones’s status as a poet.
Dr Callison is also interested in how the nuances of poetic expression respond to and engage in broader cultural discussions and particularly the relationship between poetry and religious culture. His forthcoming monograph, Mystic Modernism: Poetry and the Remaking of Religion (Edinburgh UP) presents the heterogeneous and mixed register of texts like T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartets, David Jones’s The Anathemata and H.D.’s Helen in Egypt as a reflection on the challenges of practising religion in the context of modernity. The explosion of interest in mysticism in the twentieth century not only responded to the emotional and intellectual thinness of the secular order but also channelled tensions in understandings of religion, particularly between institutional, communitarian schemas and authentic, subject-based approaches. The study goes on to show how these tensions shaped the way twentieth-century poets and religious institutions addressed their particular audiences.
This account of the valences of mysticism draws on the sociology of religion (Bellah, Davie, Hervieu-Léger) and anthropological work on lived religion (Orsi, McGuire). Dr Callison’s next project looks at the way in which twentieth-century readers engaged with popular religious fiction and how this shaped and responded to shifts in understanding of belief in the twentieth century. The seminar ‘Overcoming Orthodoxies, Recovering Beliefs’ held at Nord in 2019 initiated this work.
The study of poetry in performance represents a further research interest. Performance can be seen as a distinct area of poetics (performance poetry) or as something that follows the writing of poetry to which we might attend (close listening). Dr Callison’s work to date has focused on a 1960s audio series, ‘The Poet Speaks’, which consists of 180 recorded interviews with British poets and accompanying readings, a series that is notable for its attention to poets ranging from the conservative (Larkin) to the avant-garde (Pickard, Prynne). The inclusiveness of this selection offers a way of talking about performance not as the niche interest of a particular group of writers, but rather – given the ubiquity of poetry readings, festivals and various kinds of recording – as a phenomenon that continues to shape all kinds of verse. The relationship between performance, interpretation and pedagogy serves as the subject of a Master’s module Dr Callison teaches on the teacher education programme.
Overview:
Dr Callison has experience as a teacher in middle schools, high school and higher education settings and he earned a Postgraduate Certificate in Education in Secondary English.
In teaching literature, Dr Callison is much concerned with perspective. He zooms in on detail, endeavouring to help students uncover by means of various forms of scaffolded activity, the complexity of a given text, and zooms out again to unpack the implication of these nuances. The aim of all this is to convey something of the strangeness and power of what is read in the classroom, while highlighting the political and social consequences of writerly choices. In turn, the oscillation in the classroom, these shifts in perspectives, helps student-teachers see anew not only the texts they will use in their future classrooms, but also the young people in those classrooms and the world surrounding it. This formative dimension of our literature courses is central the professional development of trainee teachers in the subject of English.
Courses taught:
Bachelor of English (3-year Bachelor’s Degree) and High School Teacher Education in Social Science (5-year Master’s Degree): British Studies for Bachelor of English; American Studies for Bachelor of English; Bachelor Thesis in English; Epic poetry after 1900.
Middle School Teacher Education (5-year Master’s Degree): British Literature and Culture; American Literature and Culture; Research Project (FoU-oppgave); Critical Reflections on Literature and Language in English Teaching Practice; Master’s Thesis in English Education
Supervision
Bachelor’s thesis supervised: Poe’s poetry and the Gothic, magical realism and Pound’s epic poetry, WWI women’s writing and contemporary autofiction.
Research Project (FoU-oppgave) supervised: Evaluating student’s self-chosen reading in English,
Examination
Master’s Thesis: Bjørn Trygve Nes Engesæth, ‘Reclaiming Authorship: A Thematic Approach to the Poetry of Elise Cowen’ (University of Agder); Marlen Hansen, ‘Humanization of the Science Fiction’ (University of Agder); Henriette Aas, ‘We’re Using Up the Earth. It’s Almost Gone: Margaret Atwood’s MaddAddam Trilogy’ (University of Agder).
Selected Publications:
The Grail Mass and Other Works by David Jones, edited with a critical apparatus by Thomas Goldpaugh & Jamie Callison (Bloomsbury Academic, 2018). ISBN: 9781350052062.
‘Directing Modernist Spirituality: Evelyn Underhill, the Subliminal Conscious, and Spiritual Direction’, Modernist Women Writers and Spirituality: A Piercing Darkness, edited by Elizabeth Anderson, Andrew Radford, Heather Walton (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016), pp. 39-54. ISBN: 9781137530363.
‘A Poet of Distraction: David Jones’, Essays in Criticism 68, no. 3 (July 2018): 397–406.
‘Dissociating Psychology: Religion, Poetic Inspiration and T.S. Eliot’s Subliminal Mind’, ELH 84, no. 4 (Winter 2017): 1029-1059.
‘David Jones’s ‘Barbaric-fetish:’ Frazer and the ‘Aesthetic Value’ of the Liturgy’, Modernist Cultures 12, no. 3 (Nov 2017): 438-61.
‘Jesuits and Modernism? Catholic Anti-Modernism and Versions of Late Modernism’, Literature and Theology 31, no. 1 (March 2017): 1-18.
‘Directing Modernist Spirituality: Evelyn Underhill, the Subliminal Conscious, and Spiritual Direction’, Modernist Women Writers and Spirituality: A Piercing Darkness, edited by Elizabeth Anderson, Andrew Radford, Heather Walton (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016), pp. 39-54. ISBN: 9781137530363.
Research Groups:
Coordinator, Humanities, Education and Culture Research Group
Professional Connections:
British Association for Modernist Studies (BAMS)
Modernist Studies Association (MSA)
American Studies Association of Norway (ASANOR)
- David Jones’ The Grail Mass’; Caiaphas and Judas, Bebrowed’s Blog: Writing about Writing (and Reading)
- ‘The Heart Of Time’ Revisited: A New Translation by David Jones, PN Review 226