Deirdre Osborne

Deirdre Osborne Hon. FRSL is an Australian-born academic who is Reader in English Literature and Drama in the Theatre and Performance Department at Goldsmiths, University of London, and also co-convenes the MA degree in Black British Writing.[1]

Deirdre Osborne

Hon. FRSL
Born
Australia
Alma materUniversity of Melbourne;
King's College London;
Birkbeck, University of London
OccupationAcademic
EmployerGoldsmiths, University of London
Known forCo-convener of MA degree in Black British Writing
Websitewww.gold.ac.uk/ecw/staff/d-osborne/

Career

Deirdre Osborne studied at the University of Melbourne, Australia, earning a Classics degree, English Literature at King's College London, and did a research PhD in Victorian literature (for which she was Australian Bicentennial Scholar) from Birkbeck, University of London, where she also taught.[1]

She is currently Reader in English Literature and Drama in the Department of English and Creative Writing after having worked for sixteen years in the Department of Theatre and Performance Goldsmiths, University of London. With Emerita Professor Joan Anim-Addo she co-founded the MA in Black British Writing/Literature in 2014, a ground-breaking course that is taught nowhere else.[2][3]

Osborne wrote the Edexcel Examination Board's A-level Black British Literature syllabus.[1][4]

She has published extensively on the work of Black British writers (including Kwame Kwei-Armah, Roy Williams, Lemn Sissay, SuAndi, debbie tucker green, Andrea Levy, Valerie Mason-John and Mojisola Adebayo).[5] Her books include Critically Black: Black British Dramatists and Theatre in the New Millennium (2016), Inheritors of the Diaspora: Contemporary Black British Poetry, Drama and Prose (2016), Bringing up baby: food, nurture and childrearing in late-Victorian literature (2016) and, as editor, The Cambridge Companion to British Black and Asian Literature, the first comprehensive account of the influence of contemporary British Black and Asian writing in British culture,[6] which "investigates the past sixty-five years of literature by centralising the work of British Black and Asian writers".[7]

Osborne was responsible for organising two notable international conferences at Goldsmiths: "On Whose Terms?": Critical Negotiations in Black British Literature and the Arts, in 2008, and On Whose Terms? Ten Years On… (2018).[8]

In 2021, with Joan Anim-Addo and Kadija Sesay, she curated This is The Canon: Decolonize Your Bookshelf in 50 Books – in the words of Nikesh Shukla "a vital and timely introduction to some of the best books I've ever read"[9] – which is described as "[s]ubverting the reading lists that have long defined Western cultural life", highlighting alternatives by people of African or Asian descent and indigenous peoples.[10]

She is a member of the Darcus Howe Legacy Collective and co-edited the commemorative Special Issue of Race Today, the first published since 1988 with Leila Hassan and Margaret Peacock. Osborne is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature[11] and Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.

Selected bibliography
  • 2016. Critically Black: Black British Dramatists and Theatre in the New Millennium. University of Manchester Press.
  • 2016. Inheritors of the Diaspora: Contemporary Black British Poetry, Drama and Prose. London: Northcote Press.
  • 2016. Bringing up Baby: Food, Nurture and Childrearing in late-Victorian literature.
  • 2021. (With Kadija Sesay and Joan Anim-Addo) This is the Canon: Decolonize Your Bookshelves in 50 Books. London: Greenfinch/Quercus. ISBN 978-1529414592.

As editor
  • 2008. Hidden Gems. London: Oberon Books. ISBN 978-1840028430
  • 2011. A Raisin in the Sun. London: Methuen Drama. ISBN 978-1408140901
  • 2011. A Raisin in the Sun [Critical Edition]. London: Methuen Drama. ISBN 9781408140901
  • 2012. Hidden Gems Two: Contemporary Black British Plays: 2. London: Oberon Books. ISBN 978-1849431484
  • 2014. (With Mary F. Brewer and Lynette Goddard) Modern and Contemporary Black British Drama. London and New York: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 9780230303195
  • 2016. Contemporary Black British Women's Writing: Contradictions and Heritages.
  • 2016. The Cambridge Companion to British Black and Asian Literature (1945–2010). Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9781107139244. ISBN 9781316504802

References
  1. "Dr Deirdre Osborne", Goldsmiths.
  2. "MA in Black British Writing – Goldsmiths, University of London", Masterstudies.com.
  3. Abbianca Makoni, "We know how higher education fails black students, so what’s stopping us from fixing it?", The Independent, 18 March 2019.
  4. "Black British Literature at A Level: A first step to many", Race Matters, Runnymede, 21 July 2017.
  5. "Deirdre Osborne (ed.)" at Oberon Books.
  6. The Cambridge Companion to British Black and Asian Literature (1945–2010), Cambridge University Press.
  7. Deirdre Osborne, "In all British interests", Fifteen Eighty-Four, Cambridge University Press blog, 25 October 2016.
  8. "On Whose Terms? Ten Years On…". Goldsmiths.
  9. Cox, Sarah (27 October 2021). "Diversifying bookshelves with an alternative literary canon". English and Creative Writing | Goldsmiths.
  10. Susie Mesure (21 October 2021). "Black History Month: Writers urge readers to 'Decolonize Your Bookshelf' with new canon of diverse authors". i.
  11. "Deirdre Osborne". Royal Society of Literature. Retrieved 24 June 2023.
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