Dr Susan Greenberg

My research follows two pathways. In Publishing and Book Studies, the monograph A Poetics of Editing offers the first-ever attempt to define a poetics of the editing arts and outlines the potential for a new field of editing studies, in which the ‘ideal editor’ can be understood as part of the relationship with the long-theorised author and reader. The work has been described by Humanities Professor Alan Liu as providing ‘a rich framework for seeing the world’, and by SHARP as pointing to ‘new and exciting roads of investigation for future scholars’. I am Lead Editor of a strand on ‘Editors and Editing’ for the Cambridge Elements list on Publishing and Book Culture, which aims to take up the challenge outlined in the Poetics to map a new field of Editing Studies.

I will be contributing as an author to another Elements list, about the role of the ‘crossover’ nonfiction book.

My journal article about the publisher Macmillan in London and New York looks through the lens of a particular historical event to throw light on transatlantic tensions in the immediate postwar period and evaluate the role of ‘emotional’ personal factors in human agency. It also brings a significant amount of archival material into view for the first time.

In the field of narrative nonfiction. I am a founding member of the International Association of Literary Journalism Studies, a pioneering body that has extended the field beyond English-speaking counties. The association awards an annual research prize in my name and my work in this field is cited by the Oxford Dictionary of Journalism as the source for its entry on ‘Slow Journalism’.

In Creative Writing more generally, I contributed to a revised national research benchmark and represented the subject association NAWE in consultations on Open Access monographs, winning regulatory support for OA exceptions to creative and crossover outputs.

I have peer reviewed book proposals and manuscripts for numerous journals, book publishers, and funding bodies, including the Leverhulme-funded project ‘The business of women’s words’ and submissions to the Polish Academy of Sciences.