My winning proposal: ‘Don’t fixate on writing a book’

The AHRC’s Leadership Fellows scheme offers up to £250,000 for researchers leading major collaborative projects. Stefano Evangelista at the University of Oxford, who won a fellowship last year, talks to James Brooks about how the application inspired a research rethink.

What’s your main area of research? 

I work primarily on 19th-century English literature. One of my major themes is the reception of the classics: how authors and readers in Britain at that time responded to classical antiquities and texts. I also research the transnational dimensions of literature: for example, by looking at dialogue between British authors and writers abroad, or how translations might circulate.