Andrew McKendry - Department of English

Andrew McKendry

Associate Professor

Education

Appointments

Areas of Interest

Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century British Literature; Dissent & Nonconformity; Disability; Religious History and Culture; Secularism & Postsecularism; Puritanism; Toleration

Profile

Andrew McKendry is Associate Professor at the Bodø campus of Nord University. His research focuses on the political and religious writing of the Long Eighteenth Century (from John Milton to Lord Byron). He is interested in the history of Protestant Dissent, particularly as it shaped understandings of sovereignty, autonomy, and justice. This interest informs his published research on Daniel Defoe and Mary Wollstonecraft, as well as his more recent work on disability in seventeenth-century religious thought. His writing has appeared in journals such as Eighteenth-Century Studies and Studies in Romanticism. He has recently completed pieces for Notes and Queries (Oxford), Mary Wollstonecraft in Context (Cambridge), Imagining Religious Toleration: A Literary History of an Idea, 1600-1830 (Toronto), and The Cambridge Guide to the Eighteenth-Century Novel (Cambridge). He has forthcoming chapters in the Oxford Handbook of Disability and Literatures in English 1700-1900 (Oxford), and Global Bunyan and Visual Arts (Rowman & Littlefield).

Dr. McKendry’s latest monograph, Disavowing Disability: Richard Baxter and the Conditions of Salvation, (Cambridge University Press, July 2021), examined the role that disability, both as a concept and an experience, played in seventeenth-century debates about salvation. Exploring how the use and definition of the term “disability” functioned to allocate agency and culpability, he argued that the post-Restoration imperative to capacitate “all men”—not just the “elect”—entailed a conceptual circumscription of disability, one premised on a normative imputation of capability.

Dr. McKendry also leads the Humanities, Education and Culture Research Group, through which he has organized events such as the “Rights/Rites of Inclusion” seminar, the “Community, Crisis, and Change” seminar, and the ASANOR Conference. He is Institutional Lead for the SEA-EU ASCET Project, and he sits on the faculty’s Research Committee (FLU-forskningsutvalget).

Teaching

Instruction

Current

Dr. McKendry is currently responsible for a senior seminar, entitled Literature and Environmental Catastrophe, which explores representations of nature and natural disasters across multiple forms of media, including novels, poems, short stories, films, songs, visual arts, and games. In this course students look closely and critically at the cultural history of “the environment,” investigating how notions of risk, responsibility, order, and justice have taken form. This course is available to upper-year students enrolled in either the Bachelor of English or the Sea Change: Adventures in English Semester Package. Additionally, he is course coordinator for Research and Writing, which provides students with a foundation in the theoretical frameworks, writing skills, and research methods of the Humanities.

Dr. McKendry also teaches the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century portions of a variety of English courses. At the Master’s-level, he is responsible for a module on non-fiction prose.

Courses:

- - - ENG2001: English 2A
    - ENG2002: English 2B
    - ENG2005: Literature and Environmental Catastrophe
    - ENG5001: Critical Reflections on Literature and Language in English Teaching Practices
    - ME120L: Research and Writing
    - SP156L/138L: British Studies for Teacher Education
    - SP157L/139L: American Studies for Teacher Education
    - SP171L: British Studies for Bachelor of English
    - SP172L: American Studies for Bachelor of English
    - VIT5002: Scholarly Theory and Methodology

Dr. McKendry has taught a diverse range of courses on literature and on theory at institutions across four different countries. Offerings have included “Enlightenment and its Shadows” at McMaster University, “Crowds Multitudes and Mobs” at Yale University, “Introduction to Theory and Criticism” at Bilkent University, and “Authors in Context: Daniel Defoe” at Queen’s University, among others.

He has also led workshops on academic writing & research for MA and PhD students as well as literature seminars for high school (VGS) students.

Supervision

Current

Dr. McKendry is available to supervise undergraduate and graduate research in English through the following programmes:

- - SP240L/ENG2022: Bachelor Thesis in English (BAENG)
  - PED2002/2003: Research and Development Project – FOU (MAGLU)
  - ENG5003: Master Thesis in English (MAGLU)
  - PhD in Professional Sciences (DRGPR)

Dr. McKendry serves as a practicum supervisor for students on placement for the Master’s Degree in Lower Secondary Teacher Education.

Dr. McKendry has supervised student research on a range of topics, including gender & the eighteenth-century novel; love in dystopian fiction; authorship in seventeenth-century epic poetry; simulation in postmodern fiction; teaching satire in the English-language classroom; and English literacy in Norwegian schools, among others.

Training

University Pedagogy (UNIPED), Nord University (2024)

Developing Doctoral Supervision Course, University of Agder and Nord University (2021)

Online Pedagogy Seminars, KOLT, Nord University (2020)

Master’s Thesis Supervision Qualification Course, Nord University (2019-2020)

Professional and Pedagogical Skills II, Queen’s University (2008-2009)

Professional and Pedagogical Skills I, Queen’s University (2007-2008)

Publications

Selected Publications:

Books:

Disavowing Disability: Richard Baxter and the Conditions of Salvation. Cambridge University Press, 2021.

- - Reviewed in: Church History and Religious Culture 102.3 (2022); Bunyan Studies 26 (2022); Reformation 27.2 (2022); Theology 125.5 (2022).

Articles, Chapters, and Reviews:

Review of British Romanticism and Denmark by Cian Duffy. Eighteenth-Century Fiction, vol. 36, no. 2, 2024, pp. 359–362.

Review of Disability Rights and Religious Liberty in Education by Bruce J. Dierenfield and David A. Gerber. H-Net: Social Sciences and Humanities Online Reviews, 2021.

“Dissenters.” Mary Wollstonecraft in Context, edited by Nancy E. Johnson and Paul Keen, Cambridge University Press, 2020, pp. 146-154.

“Blind or Blindfolded? Disability, Religious Difference, and John Milton’s Samson Agonistes.” Imagining Religious Toleration: A Literary History of an Idea, 1600-1830, edited by Alison Conway and David Alvarez, University of Toronto Press, 2019, pp. 58-96.

“Numbers 13 and the Grapes of Robinson Crusoe.” Notes and Queries, vol. 66, no. 1, 2019, pp. 86-87.

“‘No Parallels from Hebrew Times’: Troubled Typologies and the Glorious Revolution in Daniel Defoe’s Williamite Poetry.” Eighteenth-Century Studies, vol. 50, no. 1, 2016, pp. 81-99.

Review of Daniel Defoe: Contrarian by Robert Merrett. University of Toronto Quarterly vol. 85, no. 3, 2016, pp. 402–404.

“Will the Public Please Step Forward? Libel Law and Public Opinion in Byron’s The Vision of Judgment.” Studies in Romanticism, vol. 54, no. 4, 2015, pp. 525-549.

“‘For thou can’st read’: Cultural Silence and Education in Gray’s Elegy.” Lumen, vol. 31, 2012, pp. 101-114.

“The Haphazard Journey of a Mind: Experience and Reflection in Samuel Johnson’s A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland.” Age of Johnson, vol. 20, 2010, pp. 11-34.

Forthcoming:

“Disability and Christianity.” The Oxford Handbooks of Disability and Literatures in English, edited by Essaka Joshua, Oxford University Press, 2025. (under contract)

“Illustrating Disability: Theology, Comfort, and Capability.” Global Bunyan and Visual Art, edited by Angelica Duran and Katie Calloway, Rowman & Littlefield, 2025 (under contract).

“Pilgrim’s Progress I and II (1679–1684),” “The Holy War (1682),” “The Traditions, A Legendary Tale (1795),” “Margarita (1799),” “Emily: A Moral Tale (1809/11).” Cambridge Guide to the Eighteenth-Century Novel, 1660–1820, edited by April London. Cambridge University Press, 2024. (in press)

Bookshelf:

Networks

Groups & Projects:

Leader, Nord University Humanities, Education and Culture Research Group
Institutional Lead, the ASCET Project, SEA-EU
Director, Bodø Literature Club for Middle School Pupils (Norwegian charitable org. nr. 932 106 043)
Organizer and Moderator, McMaster University Eighteenth-Century Workshop Group (2016-2018)
Member, University of Toronto Eighteenth-Century Group (2016-2018)
Member, Yale University Eighteenth-Century Group (2014-2016)

Peer Review:

Committees:

FLU-forskningsutvalget (Research Committee), Nord University (2022-present)
Humanities, Education & Culture Student Excellence Award Selection Committee, Nord University (2022-present)
Keymer Award Selection Committee (2020-present)
Steering Committee, Kultur og dannelse (2020-present)
D.W. Smith Fellowship Selection Committee (2019-present)
Selection Committee for the Associate Dean of Graduate Studies and Research, McMaster University (2016-2017)
Undergraduate Prerequisite Committee, Bilkent University (2014)

Society Memberships:

American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies (ASECS)
Canadian Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies (CSECS)
Disability History Association (DHA)
Ecclesiastical History Society (EHS)
International Daniel Defoe Society
International John Bunyan Society (IJBS)
International Margaret Cavendish Society
International Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies (ISECS)
Milton Society of America (MSA)
Modern Language Association (MLA)
Northeast American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies (NEASECS)
Norsk selskap for 1700-tallsstudier (1700-TALLET)
Renaissance Society of America (RSA)
Richard Baxter Association
Society for Disability Studies (SDS)
Southeast American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies (SEASECS)

Exhibition and Event Organization:

Co-organizer, ASCET Webinar (2024)
Co-organizer, ASANOR Conference, Nord, University (2022)
Organizer, “Community, Crisis, and Change” Seminar, Nord University (2021)
Organizer, “Rights/Rites of Inclusion” Seminar, Nord University (2020)
Co-curator, “Ice and Fire: Frankenstein and the Arctic,” Frankenreads, Nord University (2018)
Display Coordinator, “Methodism,” The Immaterial Eighteenth-Century Rare Book Display, William Ready Division of Archives (2011)