Dinah Birch

Dinah Birch (born 4 October 1953) is an English literary critic. She is Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research and Knowledge Exchange and Professor of English Literature at the University of Liverpool.^[1] She was a student at St Hugh's College, Oxford^[2] and also undertook her doctorate at the University of Oxford.^[1] In 1980 she became the first woman to be elected to the Governing Body of Merton College.

Her work has been primarily on Victorian literature, and among the authors on whom she has published writings are Charles Dickens, Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, and Alfred Tennyson.^[3] She has also edited two books on the Victorian critic John Ruskin: Ruskin and Gender (2002) and John Ruskin: Selected Writings (2004).^[1] Birch is serving as the General Editor of the 2012 edition of the Oxford Companion to English Literature.^[4] She is the author of Our Victorian Education (2008), writes regularly for the TLS and the LRB, and contributes to arts programmes on radio and television.

In December 2011, Birch was named as a member of the jury for the 2012 Man Booker Prize. Jury chair Sir Peter Stothard called her "[one] of Britain's finest professional critics".^[5] She is married and has two adult children.^[2] Birch lists Middlemarch by George Eliot as her favourite book.^[2]

References

1. "Professor Dinah Birch - SCHOOL OF ENGLISH". University of Liverpool. Retrieved 15 October 2012.
2. Elson, Peter (31 May 2012). "Big Interview Prof Dinah Birch". Liverpool Daily Post. Retrieved 15 October 2012.
3. "Dinah Birch". Man Booker Prize. Retrieved 15 October 2012.
4. "Dinah Birch". Macmillan Publishers. Retrieved 15 October 2012.
5. "Downton Abbey star is Booker Prize judge". The Daily Telegraph. 12 December 2011. Retrieved 15 October 2012.