Dr Jeannette Baxter is a leading scholar on the work of J.G. Ballard and has published extensively on his fictional and non-fictional writings as they intersect with post-war science fictions (particularly in the contexts of New Wave SF), surrealism, neuroscience, literary historiography, and sound studies. Her broader research interests into the historical and political import of science fiction extend to modern and contemporary writers, including Katherine Burdekin, Anna Kavan, Michael Moorcock, Alan Burns, Angela Carter, Doris Lessing and, more recently, China Mieville.
Jeannette’s research on the visuality of Ballard’s science fiction has led to invited collaborations with visual artists in the curating and staging of public exhibitions and sound events. With Phil Goss and Fay Ballard, she worked on ‘The Drowned World’, an exhibition of drawings and writings (Aldeburgh, May 2015), which were in dialogue with some of the key themes of Ballard’s novel The Drowned World(1962). In August 2016, she collaborated with Henna-Riike Halonen in the production of a radio collage based on Ballard work and her own critical interpretations of that work.
Selected Publications:
‘Sounding Surrealist Historiography: Listening to Concrete Island‘, Literary Geographies, (forthcoming special journal issue, 2016).
‘Don’t Confuse the Map with the Territory’, ‘The Drowned World’ exhibition catalogue with illustrations by Phil Goss and Fay Ballard, 2015.
‘Accident and Apocalypse in the Writing of Alan Burns’, in Surrealism, Science Fiction and Comic Books, ed. Gavin Parkinson. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2015.
‘Encountering the Holocaust in J. G. Ballard’s Post-War Short Stories’, Textual Practice, Vol. 26, Issue 3, pp. 379-398, 2012.
Visions and Revisions: Essays on J. G. Ballard, with an introduction and essay. London: Palgrave. ISBN 9780230278127 (co-edited with Rowland Wymer). 2011.
G. Ballard’s Surrealist Imagination: Spectacular Authorship (Ashgate, 2009), ISBN 9780754662670.
Contemporary Critical Perspectives: J. G. Ballard, with an introduction, interview and essay, (London: Bloomsbury, 2008), ISBN 9780826497260.
