TORCH welcomes a new Director

Professor Christine Gerrard, Professor of English Literature, has been appointed as the next Director of TORCH from October 2023. 

Professor Gerrard said: “I’m thrilled to be leading TORCH as it enters its second decade and an exciting new era. The move to the new Schwarzman Centre for the Humanities offers an opportunity to scale up TORCH’s ambitions for innovative and visionary research collaborations which embody the vital significance of the Humanities to today’s world. I am delighted and honoured to have been appointed as the next Director of TORCH.  Since its foundation in 2013, TORCH has become the beacon and engine for interdisciplinary work in the Humanities at Oxford, forging and facilitating research and public-facing collaborations locally, nationally and globally.  I’m thrilled to be leading TORCH as it enters its second decade and an exciting new era. The move to the new Schwarzman Centre for the Humanities offers an opportunity to scale up TORCH’s ambitions for innovative and visionary research collaborations which embody the vital significance of the Humanities to today’s world. I hope to expand TORCH’s strategic vision in fields such as environmental and medical humanities, AI and digital Humanities, working to build ambitious and impactful collaborations with internal, external and international partnerships. My recent experience as a TORCH Knowledge Exchange Fellow working with the National Trust and English Heritage has given me rich insights into the TORCH team’s unrivalled community spirit, energy, zest and resilience. I’m hugely excited to be joining the team."

Professor Gerrard is also Barbara Scott Fellow and Tutor in English at Lady Margaret Hall, where she recently served as Interim Principal. Her main areas of research are eighteenth century political literature and women's writing of the long eighteenth century. She is currently completing The Oxford History of Poetry in English: The Eighteenth Century for OUP and an edition of Jonathan Swift, The History of the Four Last Years of the Queen for CUP.