FEATURED AUTHOR
Ben Grant
Ben Grant is an adventurous reader and writer whose areas of interest include: aphorisms; colonial and postcolonial literatures; psychoanalysis; and travel. His first book is a ground-breaking study of the iconic Victorian, Richard Francis Burton. His second, in Routledge's prestigious New Critical Idiom series, is a wide-ranging account of the aphorism. Ben has also published articles on subjects including the Kama Sutra, Frantz Fanon, Paul du Chaillu, Claire Denis, and ‘ex-patriotism’.
Biography
Ben Grant obtained his PhD in Postcolonial Studies from the University of Kent, where he continues to research and teach. His first book, Postcolonialism, Psychoanalysis and Burton, is an ambitious and stylistically innovative work, in which the nature of ‘imperial fantasy’ is explored through a close reading of the iconic nineteenth-century traveller and translator, Richard Francis Burton. His second book, The Aphorism and Other Short Forms, is in Routledge’s prestigious New Critical Idiom Series. In it, Ben explores key aspects of the theory and practice of the aphorism, and thereby presents a much needed, consolidated picture of this exciting, varied and often marginalized form. Ben has also co-written a piece which coins a new word, ‘ex-patriotism’, to think about British colonialism and migration in today’s world, and has published articles on the place of ancestors in the work of the revolutionary Frantz Fanon; Paul du Chaillu’s dreamy account of his discovery of the gorilla in West Africa; the first translation of the Kama Sutra; and Claire Denis’s beautiful film Beau Travail. An essay of Ben’s appears in the catalogue for a major exhibition on the Kama Sutra at the Pinacothèque de Paris, and an article on Richard Francis Burton in the Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Victorian Literature.For further details of Ben's publications, please see his profile on academia.edu.
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Books
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