Katarina O’Briain
Assistant Professor
Ext: 22147
Email: kobriain@yorku.ca
Katarina O’Briain specializes in the literature and culture of the global eighteenth century. She is at work on a book manuscript, tentatively titled Georgic Dispossessions: Poetry Across the Long Eighteenth Century. This project traces the ways in which georgic poetry has been used to justify ongoing histories of settler colonialism and racial capitalism; it also tells an alternate history of the mode by engaging the work of Black, Indigenous, and anticolonial writers of the period who refuse to define land as capital. A second research project — on the transpacific eighteenth century, with a particular focus on Tagalog poetry and the Manila–Acapulco Galleon Trade — is in the earliest stages of planning.
Before joining York University, Katarina O’Briain taught courses in literary history, Black Atlantic literature, and research methodologies at St. Mary’s University, Calgary, where she received a Teaching Excellence Award in 2021. Her classes often encourage the development of slow, close readings of texts to offer new perspectives on old works of literature and to think carefully about how some of the most urgent social questions of the eighteenth century live on in our present moment.
Degrees
Ph.D., Johns Hopkins UniversityM.A., Johns Hopkins University
B.A., University of Alberta
"Benjamin Banneker, Anti-Slavery, and the Weather," The American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, Baltimore (April 2022)
"Phillis Wheatley Peters, Catastrophist," The Canadian Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, Ottawa (October 2022)
"Remaking Worlds: Phillis Wheatley's Heroic Couplets" (invited), Yale University, Renaissance & 18C & 19C Colloquia, April 2022
"Refusing Settler Georgics; Alternate Genealogies of Care." The Indigenous Eighteenth Century, CSECS, Winnipeg (October 2021)
“Phillis Wheatley and the Limits of Craft Labor.” The American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, Denver (March 2019)
“Phillis Wheatley and the Limits of Georgic.” The American Comparative Literature Association, Washington DC (March 2019)
“Swift’s Georgics of the South Sea.” The Canadian Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, Toronto (October 2017)
“What is the Craft in Statecraft?; or, The Problem of Value in Dryden’s The Medall.” Modern Language Association, Austin (January 2016)
“The Matter of Swift’s Poetry.” The American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, Williamsburg (March 2014)
“Monarchical Aesthetics: The Form of the Sovereign in Alexander Pope’s Windsor Forest.” The Canadian Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, Edmonton (October 2012)
Current Courses
| Term | Course Number | Section | Title | Type |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Winter 2024 | AP/EN4061 3.0 | M | Environmental Justice Literature | SEMR |
| Fall/Winter 2023 | AP/EN4120 6.0 | A | The Rise of the Novel | SEMR |
Katarina O’Briain specializes in the literature and culture of the global eighteenth century. She is at work on a book manuscript, tentatively titled Georgic Dispossessions: Poetry Across the Long Eighteenth Century. This project traces the ways in which georgic poetry has been used to justify ongoing histories of settler colonialism and racial capitalism; it also tells an alternate history of the mode by engaging the work of Black, Indigenous, and anticolonial writers of the period who refuse to define land as capital. A second research project — on the transpacific eighteenth century, with a particular focus on Tagalog poetry and the Manila–Acapulco Galleon Trade — is in the earliest stages of planning.
Before joining York University, Katarina O’Briain taught courses in literary history, Black Atlantic literature, and research methodologies at St. Mary’s University, Calgary, where she received a Teaching Excellence Award in 2021. Her classes often encourage the development of slow, close readings of texts to offer new perspectives on old works of literature and to think carefully about how some of the most urgent social questions of the eighteenth century live on in our present moment.
Degrees
Ph.D., Johns Hopkins UniversityM.A., Johns Hopkins University
B.A., University of Alberta
All Publications
"Benjamin Banneker, Anti-Slavery, and the Weather," The American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, Baltimore (April 2022)
"Phillis Wheatley Peters, Catastrophist," The Canadian Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, Ottawa (October 2022)
"Remaking Worlds: Phillis Wheatley's Heroic Couplets" (invited), Yale University, Renaissance & 18C & 19C Colloquia, April 2022
"Refusing Settler Georgics; Alternate Genealogies of Care." The Indigenous Eighteenth Century, CSECS, Winnipeg (October 2021)
“Phillis Wheatley and the Limits of Craft Labor.” The American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, Denver (March 2019)
“Phillis Wheatley and the Limits of Georgic.” The American Comparative Literature Association, Washington DC (March 2019)
“Swift’s Georgics of the South Sea.” The Canadian Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, Toronto (October 2017)
“What is the Craft in Statecraft?; or, The Problem of Value in Dryden’s The Medall.” Modern Language Association, Austin (January 2016)
“The Matter of Swift’s Poetry.” The American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, Williamsburg (March 2014)
“Monarchical Aesthetics: The Form of the Sovereign in Alexander Pope’s Windsor Forest.” The Canadian Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, Edmonton (October 2012)
Current Courses
| Term | Course Number | Section | Title | Type |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Winter 2024 | AP/EN4061 3.0 | M | Environmental Justice Literature | SEMR |
| Fall/Winter 2023 | AP/EN4120 6.0 | A | The Rise of the Novel | SEMR |
