A scholar from Florida State University’s Department of English has been recognized for her influence in the field of Romantic-era writing and culture.
Judith Pascoe, George Mills Harper Professor of English, earned the 2025 Distinguished Scholar Award from the Keats-Shelley Association of America (K-SAA) in recognition of her careerlong excellence in scholarship on Romantic-era British literature and culture. As one of this year’s two awardees, Pascoe was honored by K-SAA in January during the 2025 Modern Language Association Annual Convention in New Orleans.
“I was surprised and pleased to earn the award, especially since previous recipients include my dissertation director at the University of Pennsylvania, Dr. Stuart Curran, who was a major champion of Romantic-era women writers,” Pascoe said.
Established in 1949, K-SAA enhances the study and appreciation of John Keats and Percy Bysshe Shelley, prominent writers during the Romantic era, which ran from the late-18th century to the early-19th century. K-SAA’s Distinguished Scholar Award honors those who have dedicated their careers to studying Romantic-era writers and culture.
“It’s very exciting for one of the department’s own to receive such a coveted distinction from an important organization in the field,” said Andrew Epstein, chair of the Department of English and Caldwell Professor of English. “It confirms Dr. Pascoe’s reputation as one of the most important and influential scholars of Romanticism.”
“The British Romantics wrote some of the most remarkable poetry and prose in literary history and their influence lives on in genres ranging from horror movies to political manifestos,” Pascoe said. “What’s more, the societal issues with which the Romantics grappled — such as racism, technologies, climate events and political revolutions — still challenge us today.”
Last year, Pascoe earned a $60,000 grant from the National Endowment of Humanities to complete her book, “Twinkle, Twinkle: Female Literary Ambition, Male Genius, and the Most Famous Poet You’ve Never Heard Of.” The project spotlights Jane Taylor, the author of “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” and will be Pascoe’s fifth book related to British Romanticism. To complete this project, Pascoe will also draw on Strozier Library’s John MacKay Shaw Collection of Childhood in Poetry and research support provided by the George Mills Harper Professorship.
“I strive to make my research engaging and accessible to a broad audience,” Pascoe said. “In my most recent book, ‘On the Bullet Train with Emily Brontë’, which I completed as a Guggenheim Fellow, I sought to understand why ‘Wuthering Heights’ has been so warmly embraced in Japan, and also to chronicle my experience as an adult student of Japanese.”
In “The Hummingbird Cabinet: A Rare and Curious History of Romantic Collectors” (Cornell University Press, 2005), Pascoe drew on archival research to explore collecting’s role in the relationship between reader, author and authorial legacy. She wrote about collectors of birds, books, Napoleonic relics, botanical specimens, Egyptiana and fossils.
In “The Sarah Siddons Audio Files: Romanticism and the Lost Voice” (University of Michigan Press, 2011), Pascoe sought to recreate the lost voice of Sarah Siddons, a Romantic-era theater actress whose powerful performances, including as Lady Macbeth, caused audience members to faint during the time before voices could be recorded. In pursuit of this goal, Pascoe enrolled in a Voice for Actors class, collected Lady Macbeth performance recordings and started listening more carefully to the soundscape of her own life. Pascoe’s book also investigated how modern recording technology has altered the human experience of the voice.
“Recipients of the Distinguished Scholar Award like Dr. Pascoe are recognized for helping to set the agenda for the future study of Romanticism, underscoring something we’re very proud of: FSU is on the cutting edge of research in this important literary field and the humanities more broadly,” Epstein said.
To learn more about Pascoe’s work and FSU’s Department of English, visit english.fsu.edu.