Dr Jay PARKER

Jay Parker received his undergraduate degree from the University of Cambridge and his MA and PhD from the University of Leeds. He has taught at the University of Leeds, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, and The University of Hong Kong, where he was Honorary Assistant Professor in the School of English from 2018 to 2025.

His research examines the novel as a form of political, legal, and environmental thinking, with particular interests in Joseph Conrad, liberalism, poetic justice, law and literature, postcritique, and environmental humanities. He is the author of Conrad’s Liberal Fiction: Reading the Political Novel, under contract with Edinburgh University Press, and co-editor of Joseph Conrad and Postcritique: Politics of Hope, Politics of Fear. His work has appeared in Textual Practice, Law and Literature, and The Conradian.

Dr Parker has received two Faculty Development Scheme grants from the Hong Kong Research Grants Council, including “Poetic Justice and the Anglophone Novel, 1678–1928.” His work has been recognised by the Juliet McLauchlan Prize, the Bruce Harkness Young Scholar Award, and the Zdzisław Najder Essay Award. He is a General Editor of The Conradian and serves on the Committee of the Joseph Conrad Society UK. He led the development, accreditation, and re-accreditation of the MA in Global English Literary and Cultural Studies.

Books

• Jay Parker. Conrad’s Liberal Fiction: Reading the Political Novel. Under contract, Edinburgh University Press.
• Jay Parker and Joyce Wexler (eds). Joseph Conrad and Postcritique: Politics of Hope, Politics of Fear. (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2022). 

Journal Articles

• Jay Parker. “Lord Jim, franchise, and liberal gentlemen.” The Conradian, 2025, vol. 50, no. 1, pp. 1–23.
• Jay Parker. “Divine violence, ironic silence and poetic justice in Joseph Conrad’s The Secret Agent.” Law and Literature. DOI: 10.1080/1535685X.2020.1800313
• Jay Parker. “‘He was one of us’: Rortyian liberal ethnocentrism and ironic narrative voice in Joseph Conrad’s Lord Jim.” Textual Practice, 31.4 (2017): 823–838, DOI: 10.1080/0950236X.2016.1237993
• Jay Parker. “Rortyian Contingency and Ethnocentrism in Chance.” The Conradian, 39.1 (2014): 17–35., www.jstor.org/stable/24614142.

Book Chapters

• Jay Parker. “Chance, Romance, Melodrama, and the poetics of liberalism.” In Joseph Conrad: Centennial Perspectives, edited by John G. Peters and Chandrakant Langare. Rawat Publications, 2024.
• Jay Parker. “Quixotic Conrad: Betrayal, Conversion, and Flight”. In Parker, Jay & Joyce Wexler. Joseph Conrad and Postcritique: Politics of Hope, Politics of Fear (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2022), pp. 19–41. 
• Jay Parker. “Rortyian Contingency and Ethnocentrism in Chance”. Contemporary Literary Criticism: Rorty, edited by Laurence Trudeau, Gale, 2019 [Reprinted from The Conradian].
• Jay Parker. “Nostromo and world-ecology”. In Schneider-Rebozo, L. et al. (eds.). Conrad and Nature: Essays, (London: Routledge, 2019).

Teaching and Supervision

Dr Parker teaches in literary studies and related areas of cultural studies, including modernism, the novel, film and literature, environmental humanities, research methods, and digital humanities.

Editorial and Professional Roles

• General Editor, The Conradian, The Joseph Conrad Society UK, 2026–
• Advisory Editor, The Conradian, 2021–2025
• Executive Committee Member, Joseph Conrad Society UK, 2021–
• Trustee, Joseph Conrad Society of America, 2022–2024
• Ad hoc reviewer for journals including PMLA, Law and Literature, Victoriographies, and Conradiana.

Selected Prizes, Awards and Grants

• Zdzisław Najder Essay Award, Joseph Conrad Society of America, 2026
• Poetic Justice and the Anglophone Novel, 1678–1928. Faculty Development Scheme, Research Grants Council, 2023 (Primary Investigator).  
• Joseph Conrad and Postcritique. Faculty Development Scheme, Research Grants Council, Hong Kong, 2020 (Primary Investigator).
• Bruce Harkness Young Scholar Award, Joseph Conrad Society of America, 2015.
• Juliet McLauchlan Prize, Joseph Conrad Society (UK), 2012.