Dr. Jonathan Allison is Interim Director of University Press of Kentucky

Dr. Jonathan Allison

 Dr. Jonathan Allison will be Interim Director of the University Press of Kentucky following the departure of Steve Wrinn, whose last day is August 14, 2015. The following information went to friends of UPK on August 10, 2015.

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I want to begin by thanking everyone who suggested candidates for the Interim Director position.  I am pleased to report that Dr. Jonathan Allison has agreed to serve as Interim Director of the University Press of Kentucky while the search for a new director is conducted. Given his familiarity with the Press, the University, and the Commonwealth, I am convinced he will do an excellent job of maintaining the progress that has been made during the past several years and continue current initiatives.    

Dr. Allison, Professor of English at the University of Kentucky, specializes in British and Irish Literature of the twentieth century. His main research areas are British and Irish poetry. 

Dr. Allison's annotated edition of Letters of Louis MacNeice (Faber and Faber, 2010) was named a 2010 'Book of the Year' by the Times Literary Supplement. In 2014, he gave the BBC Louis MacNeice Memorial Lecture at Queen's University, Belfast.

Dr. Allison has edited several volumes of essays, including Yeats's Political Identities (University of Michigan Press, 1996), Poetry and Contemporary Culture, with Andrew Roberts (Edinburgh University Press, 2002) and Bound for the 1890s (Rivendale Press, 2007). His essays have appeared in various journals, books and collections.

He worked as an editorial assistant with the London Review of Books and he has twice been a Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities, University of Edinburgh. A former Director of the W. B. Yeats International Summer School, Sligo, he contributed to and appeared in the documentary film “The Passions of William Butler Yeats” (2007), produced by Lucasfilm.

Dr. Allison is currently Chair of the Editorial Board of the University Press of Kentucky and was formerly general editor of the book series Irish Literature, History and Culture.

Please join me in welcoming Dr. Allison as Interim Director.

Terry Birdwhistell

Dean of Libraries