Faculty:Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences
Research Supervision:Yes
Matthew is responsible for supporting and developing research and innovation across the faculty and leading the faculty on partnership development and income generation.
Email: matthew.day@aru.ac.uk
Matthew is an interdisciplinary researcher with interests in travel literature and early modern manuscript and print culture. He has a keen interest in knowledge exchange and partnership work and actively promotes collaborations. He has undertaken research-based projects with organisations including The Tennyson Research Centre, The Wordsworth Trust, Writing West Midlands, The Birmingham REP and The Library of Birmingham.
In addition to his research-led partnership work Matthew promotes a range of other collaborative activity. This includes facilitating international agreements with HEIs and research partners, knowledge exchange work and progression agreements with FE Colleges and schools, and consultancy and partnership work with employers. Matthew is committed to enhancing graduate employability and enterprise, having worked on a recent Higher Skills, European Social Fund project. He welcomes approaches from external organisations working in areas related to any aspect of the faculty’s work and will be pleased to facilitate partnership work by the faculty with external partners.
Matthew's research has two main foci: early modern manuscript and print culture, and travel literature. He is particularly interested in their intersection and the production, circulation and consumption of early modern travel literature. He is co-editing volume 9 of the Oxford University Press edition of Richard Hakluyt’s Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of the English Nation (1598-1600) and his other main project is a reception history of that work covering the first and second editions.
In print culture he is especially interested in issues of textual production, having written on issues that inhibit the creation of texts ranging from licensing and censorship to the agency of bookbinders. He is also interested in textual materiality and the ways in which texts create meaning beyond the merely literal. Here his work focuses on the paratextual features of texts, specifically running titles, errata sheets and marginalia.
Matthew welcomes applications in any of the areas listed under his research interests and is pleased to support interdisciplinary approaches.
Day, M. and Archer, C. (eds) Book 2.0 (7:1) Spring 2017
Day, M. and Hinks, J. (eds) (2012) From Compositors to Collectors. London: British Library and Oak Knoll Press.
Armstrong, C., Day, M. and Hinks, J. (eds) (2009) Periodicals and Publishers: The Newspaper and Journal Trade 1750-1914. London: British Library and Oak Knoll Press.
Day, M. (2018) 'Deceit, Self-Interest and Censorship: Problems at the Bookbinders in Early Modern England', Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America 112:1, 1-26.
Day, M. (Aug 2015) 'Western Travel Writing c.1450-1750' in Thompson, C. (ed.) Routledge Companion to Travel Writing London: Routledge, pp. 1-10.
Day, M. (Nov 2013) 'The Roots of Empire: Early Modern Travel Collections and International Politics in the Long Eighteenth Century', in Farr, M. and Guégan, X. (eds) The British Abroad: Experiencing Imperialism: Interdisciplinary and Transnational Perspectives of the British Abroad since the Eighteenth Century, 2 vols, II, pp. 1-20.
Day, M. (2013) 'Travelling in New Formes: Reissued and Reprinted Travel Literature in the Long Eighteenth Century' in Mémoires du livre / Studies in Book Culture 4:2 online publication.
Day, M. (Aug 2012) '"Honour to our Nation": Nationalism, The Principal Navigations and Travel Collections in the Long Eighteenth Century', in Jowitt, C. and Carey, D. (eds.) Richard Hakluyt and Travel Writing in Early Modern Europe London: Ashgate and The Hakluyt Society, pp. 77-86.
Day, M. (2012) '"Generally very tedious, often trifling": Promoting Eighteenth Century Travel Collections', in Day, M. and Hinks, J. (eds) From Compositors to Collectors: Essays in the Book Trade. London: British Library and Oak Knoll Press, pp. 18-34.
Day, M. (2011) '"Intended To Offenders" – The Running Titles of Early Modern Books', in Smith, H. and Wilson, L. (eds) Renaissance Paratexts. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 32-48.
Day, M. (2008) '"Mysteries of Commerce": - Influence, Licensing and Censorship and the Literature of Long-Distance Travel', in Deng, S. and Sebek, B. (eds) Global Commerce: Discourses and Practices 1500-1700. Basingstoke: Palgrave-Macmillan, pp. 221-44.
Day, M. (2007) 'Hakluyt, Harvey, Nashe: The Material Text and Early Modern Nationalism', Studies in Philology, 104:3 (2007), 281-305.
Day, M. (2003) 'Imagining Empire: Richard Hakluyt’s The Principal Navigations (1598-1600) and the idea of a British Empire', Journeys, 3:2 (2002) 1-28
Apr 2018 '"But to whose charge shall I lay it? Your Printer is all readie loaden"'– The rhetoric of printers' errors in early modern texts.' Printing/Misprinting Lincoln College, Oxford.
Mar 2016 'The Suppression of Texts in Early Modern England: The Binders and the Regulators', Humanities Research Seminar Series, Newman University.
May 2015 'From Compositors to Collectors' Print History and Culture Symposium, University of Birmingham.
Jan 2015 'Defining English identity in the Early Modern Period' Roots of Nationalism, National Identity Formation in Early Modern Europe 1600-1815, University of Nijmegen.
May 2014 'Who Read the Principal Navigations?' – Folger Shakespeare Library
Nov 2013 'Running-Title Rhetoric - - The use of running-titles in Early Modern Print Culture', Resurrecting the Book Conference – Library of Birmingham.
Aug 2013 'Binders and Censorship in Early Modern England’ New Bounde Conference – Folger Shakespeare Library
July 2013 'Roads to Nowhere? Early Modern Travel Literature and Nineteenth Century British Imperialism' - Geographies of the Book SHARP Conference
July 2012 'Richard Hakluyt's Catholic Friends' - Renaissance Old Worlds Conference - University of Liverpool and British Library.
June 2011, 'The Roots of Empire: Early Modern Travel Collections and International Politics' - How are British history and identity commemorated in text, film and artefact? - Manchester Metropolitan University.