Dr Johanna Harris

Associate Professor
Faculty of Education and Arts / Western Civilisation Program

Areas of expertise: early modern literature, religion, politics; letter writing and epistolary culture; manuscript culture and archives; book history; literature and ethics; medical humanities.

Phone: 02 9465 9591

Email: Johanna.Harris@acu.edu.au

Location: ACU North Sydney Campus

Johanna’s research focuses on the literature, religion, and politics of the early modern period, with particular interest in non-fictional prose, especially letters, and in devotional writing. Her publications have focused on well-known writers such as Andrew Marvell, Richard Baxter, and Thomas Traherne, and lesser-known writers such as Brilliana Harley and Lucy Robartes. She is currently working on two major editing projects for Oxford University Press: as co-general editor (with Dr Alison Searle) of the complete correspondence of the prolific puritan writer Richard Baxter (1615-1691), and volume editor (Vol. 1); and as volume editor of the meditational prose and poetry of Thomas Traherne for The Oxford Traherne (Vol. 3). Both projects involve extensive work with manuscripts and early modern printed books. She is completing a monograph on puritan epistolary writing, Godly Letters.

Johanna is also interested in the ethical value of literature, particularly human dignity, bibliotherapy and the medical humanities, and the role of literature in enhancing intergenerational cohesion.

Select publications

• Johanna Harris and Alison Searle (ed.), The Puritan Literary Tradition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2024)
• Johanna Harris, '“Holy, safe, and sweet, and durable”: Richard Baxter's Writings and Puritan Friendship, in The Puritan Literary Tradition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2024), 112–129.
• Johanna Harris (ed.), Dignity in Literary and Medical Ethics [special issue], Literature and Medicine 38:2 (Fall 2020).   
• Johanna Harris, ‘Gestural dignity: early modern intergenerational letters of advice’, in Johanna Harris (ed.), Dignity in Literary and Medical Ethics [special issue], Literature and Medicine 38:2 (Fall 2020), 327–348.
• Johanna Harris, ‘Introduction’, in Johanna Harris (ed.), Dignity in Literary and Medical Ethics [special issue], Literature and Medicine 38:2 (Fall 2020), 255–261.
• Johanna Harris, ‘The Letters of the Martyrs: remembering and reclaiming the apostolic form’, in Alexandra Walsham and Brian Cummings (ed.), Remembering the English Reformation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020), pp.286–302.
• Johanna Harris, ‘Andrew Marvell’s Letters, in Edward Holberton and Martin Dzelzainis (ed.), The Oxford Handbook to Andrew Marvell (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019), pp.499–516.
• Johanna Harris and N. H. Keeble, ‘Andrew Marvell and Nonconformity’, in Edward Holberton and Martin Dzelzainis (ed.), The Oxford Handbook to Andrew Marvell (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019), pp.144–63.
• Johanna Harris, ‘“Heroick virtue”: Joseph Alleine’s Letters and Protestant Martyrology’, Bunyan Studies 23 (2019), 24–44.
• Johanna Harris, ‘Sectarian Groups’, in Andrew Hiscock and Helen Wilcox (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Early Modern English Literature and Religion (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), pp.431–47.
• Johanna Harris, ‘“Be plyeabell to all good Counsell”: Lady Brilliana Harley’s advice letter to her son’, in James Daybell and Andrew Gordon (ed.), Women and Epistolary Agency in Early Modern Culture, 1450-1690 (London: Routledge, 2016), pp.128–147.
• Johanna Harris, ‘The sense of a letter: Brilliana Harley’s advice manuscript (BL 70118)’, in M. Denbo (ed.), New Ways of Looking at Old Texts (Renaissance English Texts Society: Tempe, Arizona, 2014), pp.165–180.
• Johanna Harris, ‘Scruples and ceremonies’: Lady Brilliana Harley’s epistolary combat’, Parergon 29 (2012), [93]–112.
• Johanna Harris, ‘Lady Brilliana Harley's Letters and Puritan Intellectual Culture’, Literature Compass 9 (2012), 262–270.
• Johanna Harris, 'Brilliana Harley'; 'Anne Bradstreet'; 'Mary Love', in Garrett Sullivan and Alan Stewart (ed. et al.), Blackwell Encyclopaedia of English Renaissance Literature (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012).
• Johanna Harris and Elizabeth Scott-Baumann (ed.), The Intellectual Culture of Puritan Women 1558–1680 (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011).
• Johanna Harris, ‘Lady Brilliana Harley's Letters and Intellectual Culture’, in Johanna Harris and Elizabeth Scott-Baumann (ed.), The Intellectual Culture of Puritan Women 1558–1680 (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), pp.108–121.
• Johanna Harris and Elizabeth Scott-Baumann, ‘Introduction’, in Johanna Harris and Elizabeth Scott-Baumann (ed.), The Intellectual Culture of Puritan Women 1558– 1680 (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), pp.1–14.
• Johanna Harris, ‘Lucy Robartes’ “A meditation uppon the Lords day”: A Puritan Palimpsest and English Sabbatarianism’, The Seventeenth Century, 23:1 (2008), 1–33.

Projects

• ‘Thomas Traherne’s The Ceremonial Law’, Folger Research Fellowship, Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington D.C. (non-residential due to Covid-19 travel restrictions), July—August 2021 ($US3500).

• UPP Foundation grant to support research into reading and intergenerational relationships, and to support a new ‘co-living’ pilot scheme in Exeter (£21,500).

• Headley Trust (Sainsbury Foundation) award for research on reading, intergenerational relationships, and dignity in ageing (£12,000), 2017–18.

• University of Exeter Annual Fund Award for one-day conference, ‘Reading for Life’, April 28, 2017 and further funding for a conference in November 2019.

• ‘Reassembling the letters of the English churches abroad: the United Provinces, 1600–1640’, EU-COST Action IS1310 Short Term Scientific Mission research grant (€2000), 2016.

• ‘Reading for Happiness’ network, University of Exeter Humanities and Social Sciences Strategic Development Fund (£2000), seed grant, 2014–15.

• Folger Research Fellowship, Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington D.C. ($US7500), 2013.

• James M. Osborn Research Fellowship, Beinecke Library, Yale University ($US2500), 2013.

• Advisory Board Member, AHRC-funded project, ‘The Letters of ‘Bess of Hardwick’ (c.1527–1608)’, led by Dr Alison Wiggins (Glasgow), 2008–11.

Accolades or awards

• Exeter nominee, HEA’s National Teaching Fellowship, 2017 (1/3 nominees, university-wide).
• ‘Above and Beyond’ Awards, College of Humanities, University of Exeter, 2015–17.
• 350^th ‘Points of Light’ Winner, Prime Minister and Cabinet Office, UK, 2015.
• Runner-up, Exeter Student Guild Teaching Awards (University-wide teaching awards), 2013.
• University of Exeter Merit Award for outstanding achievement as Lecturer, 2012–13.
• Vice Chancellor’s Award, University of Oxford, 2007–08.
• Lord Jenkins Benefactors Scholarship, Somerville College, Oxford, 2006–07.
• Clarendon Scholarship, University of Oxford, 2003–07.

Appointments and affiliations 

• Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, 2014.

• Postgraduate Certificate in Academic Practice, University of Exeter, 2014.

• Invited Affiliate, COST Action IS1310, ‘Reassembling the Republic of Letters 1500-1800’, 2016.

Editorials

• General editor (with Dr Alison Searle, Leeds), The Correspondence of Richard Baxter: a 9-volume edition (Oxford: Oxford University Press), scheduled for staggered publication, 2025—29. I am volume editor, Vol.1 (1638-53). Editorial team includes Nigel Smith (Princeton), Andrea Walkden (Toronto), Jason McElligott (Trinity College, Dublin), Tim Cooper (Otago).

• Volume editor, The Oxford Traherne, Volume 3: The Osborn Manuscript (Select Meditations) and ‘The Ceremonial Law’ (Oxford: Oxford University Press), in progress and forthcoming, 2026. (General editor, Dr Julia Smith)

Journal review panels

• Studies in Puritanism and Piety Journal (2018--)

Public engagement activities

• Exeter Intergenerational Project, 2018–19 (UPP Foundation, University of Exeter.

• Exeter Care Homes Reading Project, 2011–2022. (http://readingproject.exeter.ac.uk)

• Panellist, ‘Only the Lonely: Is Loneliness a Growing Health Epidemic?’ TRT World Roundtable, presented by David Foster, 9 August, 2018.

• Invited Chair, Public Policy Exchange, ‘Raising the Standards of Care Homes: Tackling.

• Vulnerability and Addressing Priorities for Reform’, 7 June, 2018.

• Johanna Harris, ‘Here’s why some Dutch university students are living in nursing homes’, The Conversation, published 29 November, 2016.

• Historical Contributor, BBC4/KeoNorth Films documentary, ‘The Century That Wrote Itself’, presented by Adam Nicolson. Screened April 2013. Contributed research and interviewed on subject of Winthrop family letters.

• ‘Why Does Reading Matter?’ (with Professor Helen Taylor), Fowey Festival of Words and Music, 11 May, 2013.

• ‘Lucy Robartes and the Library at the National Trust’s Lanhydrock’, Du Maurier Festival, May 2012.