糖心Vlog

People

Dr Jak Peake

Senior Lecturer
Department of Literature Film and Theatre Studies (LiFTS)
Dr Jak Peake
  • Email

  • Telephone

    +44 (0) 1206 874460

  • Location

    5NW.6.5, Colchester Campus

Profile

Biography

Jak joined the Department in 2011 while completing his doctorate at 糖心Vlog, which formed part of the AHRC-funded 鈥楢merican Tropics鈥 project. His principal research covers American literature in the continental sense, including United States and Caribbean literature in particular, from around the nineteenth century to the twenty first century. His research interests also include the 鈥楴ew Negro鈥, the Black or Harlem Renaissance, postcolonialism, colonialism, black diaspora and black British writing, travel writing and ecocriticism. His book, Between the Bocas: A Literary Geography of Western Trinidad, examines writing of and about Trinidad from the nineteenth to the twenty first century. This study places works by well-known authors such as V. S. Naipaul and Samuel Selvon, alongside writing by Michel Maxwell Philip, Marcella Fanny Wilkins, E. L. Joseph, Earl Lovelace, Ismith Khan, Monique Roffey, Arthur Calder-Marshall and the largely neglected novelist, Yseult Bridges, who is almost entirely forgotten today. His most recent research focuses on the New Negro and Black Modernism (or the Harlem Renaissance) in the 1910-1940 period 鈥 what鈥檚 commonly termed the jazz age. In particular he is interested in trans-American connections and networks between the United States and the Caribbean as manifested in early twentieth-century print culture: illustrated magazines, journals, anthologies, books, newspapers, pamphlets and so on. Jak would particularly welcome PhD applications in the following areas: 鈥 Caribbean literature 鈥 United States literature 鈥 Black Modernism or the Harlem Renaissance (1910s-1940s) 鈥 Modernism 鈥 Twentieth-Century Print Culture 鈥 Postcolonial/Colonial Studies 鈥 Black diaspora / Black British writing 鈥 Travel Writing 鈥 Ecocriticism

Qualifications

  • BA London

  • MA London

  • PhD 糖心Vlog

Research and professional activities

Conferences and presentations

Bound Together: Magazines and Anthologies

Modernist Studies Association Annual Conference - Seminar participant (New Work in Old Mags), Chicago, United States, 10/11/2024

Revolutionary Agenda, Traditional Form: Claude McKay: Modernist Poet? Radical Lyricist?

Modernist Studies Association Annual Conference Panel Presentation, The Drake, Chicago, United States, 7/11/2024

In the Whirlpool of Modernism, 鈥渢he English of Empire鈥: Reflections on Claude McKay鈥檚 Poetry

Invited presentation, Modernism Seminar - Modernism, Empire and the Harlem Renaissance, London, United Kingdom, 11/5/2024

J. A. Rogers, the Harlem Renaissance and the Threat of Fascism

Invited presentation, Post45 Editorial Board Symposium, Canterbury, United Kingdom, 19/6/2015

Teaching and supervision

Current teaching responsibilities

  • Contemporary Texts and Contexts (LT109)

  • I, too, sing America: Identity, Diversity, and Voice in United States Literature (LT203)

  • Black Lives Represented: Writing, Art, Politics and Society (LT218)

  • There is a Continent Outside My Window : United States and Caribbean Literatures in Dialogue (LT380)

  • Independent Literature Project (LT831)

  • Literature - Completion (LT997)

  • Introduction to United States Literature (LT161)

  • Introduction to Caribbean Literature (LT262)

Previous supervision

Leyla Bouallegue
Leyla Bouallegue
Thesis title: Representations of Motherhood By Female Ethnic Minority Novelists in Britain
Degree subject: Literature
Degree type: Doctor of Philosophy
Awarded date: 22/12/2022
Asma Hasan Jum'Ah Jahamah
Asma Hasan Jum'Ah Jahamah
Thesis title: Writing Terror: Representations of Terror and Resistance in Twenty-First-Century Anglophone Fiction
Degree subject: Literature
Degree type: Doctor of Philosophy
Awarded date: 12/7/2021
Maysaa Jihad Alwan Al-Abas
Maysaa Jihad Alwan Al-Abas
Thesis title: Cultural Identity and the Dilemma of 'In-Betweenness' in Selected Arab-American and Jewish-American Novels
Degree subject: Literature
Degree type: Doctor of Philosophy
Awarded date: 5/7/2019
Eleanor Naomi Kingsford
Eleanor Naomi Kingsford
Thesis title: Island Rewrites: Postcolonial Caribbean, British and Irish Revisions
Degree subject: Literature
Degree type: Master of Arts (by Dissertation)
Awarded date: 13/6/2019
Maria-Irina Popescu
Maria-Irina Popescu
Thesis title: American Made: The Homegrown Terrorist and 9/11 Myths in the Contemporary US Novel
Degree subject: Literature
Degree type: Doctor of Philosophy
Awarded date: 29/5/2019
Paul Terence Harper
Paul Terence Harper
Thesis title: The Story Less Told: Representations in the Inter-War Years of the American White Working Class By Four Female Authors
Degree subject: Literature
Degree type: Doctor of Philosophy
Awarded date: 21/4/2017
Helen Marie Turner
Helen Marie Turner
Thesis title: Gender, Madness and the Search for Identity in Selected Works of F. Scott Fitzgerald
Degree subject: Literature
Degree type: Doctor of Philosophy
Awarded date: 10/6/2016

Publications

Journal articles (6)

Peake, J. and McMahon, W., (2019). . Comparative American Studies: An International Journal. 15 (3-4), 99-116

Peake, J., (2018). . Radical Americas. 3 (1)

Peake, J., (2016). Pathologies of Paradise: Caribbean Detours, written by Supriya M.聽Nair. New West Indian Guide. 90 (1-2), 153-154

Peake, J., (2015). Book Review: Ismith Khan: The Man & his Work, written by Roydon Salick. New West Indian Guide. 89 (1-2), 180-181

Peake, J., (2013). . Moving Worlds: A Journal of Transcultural Writings. 13 (1), 102-117

Peake, J., (2011). . Sargasso, A Journal of Caribbean Literature, Language, and Culture. 201011 (I & II), 69-87

Books (3)

Peake, J., Hulme, P. and Susan, G., (2026). The Tropics in New York: Race and Empire in Print Culture, 1919-1928. University of Massachussetts Press

Peake, J. and Walters, T., (2026). The Bloomsbury Encyclopedia of Black British Writing: Volume 2 (1915-1980). Bloomsbury

Peake, J., (2017). . Liverpool University Press. 9781781382882

Book chapters (9)

Peake, J., (2027). Jamaica in McKay's Writing. In: Claude McKay in Context. Editors: Holcomb, G., . Cambridge University Press

Peake, J., (2025). Elusive 鈥淪un-Bright Hardness鈥? Reviewing Black Renaissance Fiction: Caribbean Horizons in an Age of a Rising, Yet Obscure, US Empire. In: Cambridge Companion to American Literature and Empire. Editors: Gillman, S. and Brickhouse, A., . Cambridge University Press

Peake, J., (2022). . In: Revolutionary Lives of the Red and Black Atlantic. Editors: Featherstone, D., H酶gsbjerg, C. and Rice, A., . Manchester University Press. 978-1-5261-4478-2

Peake, J., (2021). . In: A History of the Harlem Renaissance. Editors: Farebrother, R. and Thaggert, M., . Cambridge University Press. 211- 232. 9781108493574

Peake, J., (2018). . In: Teaching the Harlem Renaissance. Editors: Patton, VK., . MLA

Peake, J., (2014). . In: Postscripts Caribbean Perspectives on the British Canon from Shakespeare to Dickens. Editors: Rampaul, G. and Lalla, B., . University of the West Indies Press. 98- 123. 978-976-640-462-8

Peake, J., (2013). . In: Surveying the American Tropics: A Literary Geography from New York to Rio. Editors: Fumagalli, MC., Hulme, P., Robinson, O. and Wylie, L., . Liverpool University Press. 9781846318900

Peake, J., (2012). . In: Going Caribbean. New perspectives on Caribbean Literature and Art. Editors: Van Haesendonck, K., . Hu?mus. 61- 75. 9789898549068

Peake, J., (2011). . In: The Caribbean Short Story: Critical Perspectives. Editors: McWatt, M., Evans, L. and Smith, E., . Peepal Tree Press. 183- 198. 9781845231262

Contact

jrpeak@essex.ac.uk
+44 (0) 1206 874460

Location:

5NW.6.5, Colchester Campus