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Timothy Heimlich

Assistant Professor of English
English

Overview


Timothy Heimlich is Assistant Professor of English. Before coming to Duke, he earned his Ph.D. at the University of California, Berkeley and subsequently taught at the University of Cambridge (UK) and in the Netherlands. His teaching and research focus on the literature of the Romantic period, with special interests in the formation of British imperial culture, transnational studies, and gothic. He has published essays on these topics in venues including Studies in Romanticism, European Romantic Review, MLQ, and ELH.

His first book, Wales, Romanticism, and the Making of Imperial Culture (University of Cambridge Press, 2025), argues that Wales played a crucial role in literary inventions of an imperial Britishness both within Britain and abroad. His current book project explores the relationship of gothic writing to the cultural and theoretical legacies of the Enlightenment. Other research interests include Welsh writing in English, the fiction and especially the verse of Walter Scott, and historical poetics.

Office Hours


Fall '26 Semester:

Tuesdays 1:00 -3:00 PM (303I Allen)

Current Duke Appointments & Affiliations


Assistant Professor of English · 2025 - Present English, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences

Recent Scholarly Works


Great Britain and Ireland

Book section · January 1, 2025 While Shelley produced many of his most important works in self-imposed exile from Great Britain, various locales in England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales played an important role in his personal and poetic development. Attending to Shelley’s experiences a ... Full text Cite

Wales, Romanticism, and the Making of Imperial Culture

Book · January 1, 2025 At the beginning of the long eighteenth century, the adjective 'British' primarily meant Welsh, in a narrow and exclusive sense. As the nation and the empire expanded, so too did Britishness come to name a far more diffuse identity. In parallel with this t ... Full text Cite
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Education


University of California, Berkeley · 2019 Ph.D.
University of Wisconsin, Madison · 2010 B.A.