[Forthcoming] Xian University, China, as joint invitee of the universities of Xian and one other, scheduled for autumn 2017
[Forthcoming] Shanghai Symposium, 2017, as invitee of the European Division of the Bureau of International Cooperation, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, to speak on Intentionality in Literature.
Lecture ‘The Ends of Literary Theory’ at the University of Bedfordshire, 16 November 2016
Presentation ‘Practice-based Research’ at Surrey University, 5 June 2015
Lecture ‘After Theory’ at De Montfort University, 4 March 2015
Lecture ‘After Theory’ at Brighton University, 23 February 2015
Plenary lecture at English Association Conference on A Level/Degree Level Interface, 5th October, 2013, at Senate House, University of London, ‘What we talk about when we talk about poetry’.
‘Poems in Chains: Conversations Among American Poems’, public lecture at Fribourg University, Switzerland, Autumn 2012
Invited Opening Plenary Lecture at ‘Poetry and the Unpoetic’ conference, Amsterdam, 20-21 May 2011, hosted by University of Amsterdam and VU University, Amsterdam.
‘John Milton and Continuing Theory’, invited opening Keynote Address at conference celebrating 40 years of philological studies at Lucien Blaga University, Sibiu, Romania, 20 Nov 2009. Published in The English Connection: 40 Years of English Studies at Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu (pp. 31-43), ed. Eric Gilder, Alexandra Mitrea, and Ana-Karina Schneider, UNESCO-CEPES, Studies in Science and Culture, 2010.
Three invited lectures in the USA, September 2009:
1. Grand Valley State University, Michigan, ‘Ecocriticism’, 14 Sept 2. Hope College, Holland, Michigan, ‘Writing about Literature’, 15 Sept 3. English Faculty, Grand Valley State University, ‘Continuing Theory’, 16 Sept
Birkbeck College, London: invited opening plenary at one-day conference on ‘The Doctor’s Dilemma’, organized by the English Subject Centre, on the future of the PhD in English studies, 3rd April 2009.
Closing plenary at ‘CETL’ conference on assessment in English, Northumbria University, 6th December 2008, ‘Beyond “Beyond the Essay”’
Opening plenary at English Association Conference, University College London, 11 October 2008, ‘Moving on from 6th Form English to University English’
‘Continuing Literary Theory’: Invited ‘Keynote Lecture’ at the "Anglistentag", Tübingen University, Germany, 7th October, 2008.
‘An academic discipline foresees its death’, ESSE 8 conference (European Society for the Study of English), Institute of English Studies, University of London, Aug 29th – Sept 2nd 2006, plenary lecture. Published in PN Review, 173 (vol. 33, no.3), Jan – Feb 2007, pp. 16 – 20.
‘You can get it from the street: the prose style of Iain Sinclair’, plenary lecture at the Urban Poetics conference, University of Greenwich, June, 2004.
‘Barefoot in King’s Cross’, invited plenary lecture at British Council conference ‘Infinite Londons’ in Lucien Blaga University, Sibiu, Romania, October 2001.
'Inner Cities: the Geography of London in Modern and Contemporary Literature' invited plenary lecture to Oxford University Summer School, 30 July 1998.
‘Using Narratology’; invited plenary lecture to Oxford University Summer School, July 1997.
‘English in crisis: the 1980s and "practical theory"’ and ‘Literary theory into the 90s’: two invited lectures delivered at the University of Liege, February 1991, marking the 40th anniversary of the teaching of philology at the university. Both published in Belgian Essays on Literature and Language, 1991.