Douglas Kerr Explained

Honorific Prefix:	Professor
Birth Place:	Broughty Ferry, Dundee, Scotland
Education:	Cambridge University, Warwick University
Occupation:	Writer and Professor in Modern and Contemporary Literature
Notable Works:	Conan Doyle: Writing, Profession, and Practice
Spouse:	Elaine Yee Lin Ho
Nationality:	British

Douglas Kerr is a British writer and academic who is best known for his work on Arthur Conan Doyle and George Orwell.

Life and works

Kerr was born in 1951 in Broughty Ferry, Dundee. Kerr went to school in Scotland, where he started reading Conan Doyle and never stopped.^[1] He went on to read English at Trinity College, Cambridge in 1969 before completing his PhD in comparative literature at Warwick University in 1978.^[2]

In 1979, Kerr travelled to Hong Kong, where he had obtained an appointment as a lecturer in the Department of English Studies and Comparative Literature at the University of Hong Kong. Over the next 38 years, he advanced his academic career in Hong Kong, appointed associate professor and head of the English Department in 1996, associate Dean of the Faculty of Arts in 2002, Professor of English in 2006 and Dean of the Faculty of Arts in 2014. Apart from his usual academic responsibilities, Kerr's publication record was prolific, and includes around 110 papers, articles and critiques, among them seven edited scholarly volumes, and five monographs.^[3] His main academic focus has been on the literary history of the later Victorian era and the twentieth century, the literature of empire in Asia and its aftermath, and on cultural biography. Kerr's research interests also include the literature of war and of travel, the history of literary modernism, and RGC-funded projects on Arthur Conan Doyle, George Orwell and on Joseph Conrad.^[4]

Outside of academia, Kerr contributed to Hong Kong's English-language cultural life by reviewing books for the South China Morning Post^[5] and hosting 60 programmes of a talk show, The Big Idea, for Radio Television Hong Kong on cultural, historical and scientific themes.^[6] He addressed conferences presenting keynote speeches around the world, promoting excellence in written English with his wife Elaine Ho, also a literary academic.^[7] Kerr served on the board of directors of the Hong Kong International Literary Festival and became its chairman from 2009 to 2011, and participated in various BBC Radio programmes featuring the work of Wilfred Owen, George Orwell^[8] and Leonard Woolf.^[9]

In 2017, Kerr left Hong Kong and is now living and working in the UK.^[10] He is the general editor of The Edinburgh Edition of the Works of Arthur Conan Doyle, an ambitious multi-volume project to publish scholarly editions of this author's principal writing in fiction and non-fiction, from the publisher of his alma mater, the Edinburgh University Press. Kerr is also the editor of the first volume in the edition, Memories and Adventures, Conan Doyle's autobiography, which has never been properly edited.^{[11] [12]} Kerr continues to be engaged with scholarly editing as well as writing about the work of Doyle,^{[13] [14]} Joseph Conrad,^{[15] [16] [17]} and Orwell.^{[18] [19]} His latest book, Orwell and Empire, was published 2022.^[20]

Books

• Wilfred Owen's Voices (Clarendon Press, 1993)^[21]
• George Orwell (Writers and their Works series, 2003)^[22]
• A Century of Travels in China: Critical Essays on Travel Writing from the 1840s to the 1940s, co-edited with Julia Kuehn (Hong Kong University Press, 2007)^[23]
• Eastern Figures: Orient and Empire in British Writing (Hong Kong University Press, 2008)^[24]
• Conan Doyle: Writing, Profession, and Practice (Oxford University Press, 2013)^[25]
• Arthur Conan Doyle, Memories and Adventures, edited ^[11]
• Orwell and Empire (Oxford University Press, 2022)^[20]

Appointments

• 1994 - Visiting Scholar Wolfson College, Oxford
• 2000 - Visiting Research Fellow Royal Holloway, University of London
• 2005-6 - Honorary Research Fellow Birkbeck, University of London
• 2009 – Hong Kong University Output Prize
• 2011 - Elected Foundation Fellow of the Hong Kong Academy of the Humanities
• 2014-15 - Dean of the Faculty of Arts at Hong Kong University
• 2017 - Honorary Professor of English at Hong Kong University
• 2018 - Honorary Research Fellow in the School of Arts, Birkbeck College, University of London

^[26]

Notes and References

1. Web site: Kerr . Douglas . Editors . Arthur Conan Doyle . Edinburgh University Press . 8 May 2021.
2. Web site: Kerr . Douglas . A comparison of some French and English literary responses to the 1914-1918 War . Warwick University Library . Warwick University . 18 May 2021.
3. Web site: Kerr . Douglas . Academia . Academia . University of Hong Kong . 8 May 2021.
4. Web site: Anon . Professor Douglas Kerr . Profile, Publications, Media . The University of Hong Kong . 8 May 2021.
5. Web site: Anon . Latest from Douglas Kerr . Profile, Publications, Media . 28 October 2015. The University of Hong Kong . 8 May 2021.
6. Web site: RTHK . The Big Idea . Apple Podcasts Preview . 30 October 2016. Apple.com . 8 May 2021.
7. Good Writing in English (with Elaine Yee Lin Ho), Meeting of Minds public lecture series, Fudan University, Shanghai, 2008, Qinghua University, Beijing, 2009.
8. Web site: Shepherd . Dan (producer). Animal Farm . BBCSounds Masterpiece . BBC . 18 May 2021.
9. Web site: Rankin . Nick . Woolf in the Jungle . BBC Radio 4 Extra . BBC . 18 May 2021.
10. News: Chou . Oliver . Colonial privilege, academic freedom and chicken feet: reflections of a British veteran HKU professor . 21 May 2021 . South China Morning Post . Hong Kong, Education . 23 September 2017.
11. Book: Kerr . Douglas . Memories and Adventures - Arthur Conan Doyle . November 2021 . Edinburgh University Press . Edinburgh, UK . 9781474433389 . 591 . first . 5 May 2022.
12. Kerr “Editors”, Op. Cit.
13. Kerr . Douglas . Conan Doyle and the Rhetoric of Genre . English: Journal of the English Association . 2022 . 71 . 275 . 347–60.
14. Kerr . Douglas . Arthur Conan Doyle, Eugenics, and the Hand of God . Literature and History . 2023 . 32 . 1 . 46–92.
15. Web site: Kerr . Douglas . Two Strong Men: Conrad's Gaspar Ruiz and Eugen Sandow . The Conradian: Current and Recent Issues . The Joseph Conrad Society (UK) . 18 May 2021.
16. Book: Kerr . Douglas . Approaching Conrad through Theory: The Secret Sharer - in The New Cambridge Companion to Joseph Conrad, ed. J. H. Stape . 2015 . Cambridge University Press . Cambridge . 9781107035300. 44–57.
17. Kerr . Douglas . Conrad and the Ghost . Conradian . 2023 . 48 . 1 . 50–68.
18. Web site: Kerr . Douglas . Orwell, Kipling and Empire . Articles . 12 January 2012 . The Orwell Society . 8 May 2021.
19. Book: Kerr . Douglas . The Virtual Geographies of Nineteen Eighty-Four . 2020 . Cambridge University Press . Cambridge . 9781108814713 . 37–50.
20. Book: Kerr . Douglas . Orwell and Empire . 2022 . Oxford University Press . Oxford . 978-0192864093 . 224.
21. Kerr, Douglas. (16 September 1993). Wilfred Owen's Voices. (Oxford: Clarendon Press). 360 pp. ISBN 9780198123705.
22. Kerr, Douglas. (1 September 2003). George Orwell. (Tavistock: Northcote House).128 pp. ISBN 0746310153.
23. Kerr, Douglas. (2008). Eastern Figures: Orient and Empire in British Writing. (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press). 264 pp. ASIN B003HKRCGU.
24. Kerr, Douglas and Julia Kuehn eds. (2007). A Century of Travels in China: Critical Essays on Travel Writing from the 1840s to the 1940s. (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press). 232 pp. ISBN 9622098452.
25. Kerr, Douglas (18 July 2013). Conan Doyle: Writing, Profession, and Practice. (Oxford: Oxford University Press). 286 pp. ISBN 9780199674947.
26. Web site: Anon . Professor Douglas Kerr . Profile, Publications, Media . The University of Hong Kong . 25 May 2021.