PHOTO-2022-12-09-16-29-34
 ARTS • TECH • BLAKE

Recent books

Some of my most recent titles on William Blake, technology and music.

Jerusalem: Blake, Parry & the Fight for Englishness

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Divine Images: The Life & Work of William Blake

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Bodies, Noise & Power in Industrial Music

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Big Tech, Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Journalism

Read For Free Here

Magazine Production (Media Skills)

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Online Journalism in Africa

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reviews of Jerusalem

By taking a deep dive into the history of the song, Whittaker offers us an inspiring insight into what could be a rallying point for that new English identity.

Billy Bragg - The New Statesman
Jerusalem is a wonderfully researched, enjoyable work about a cultural phenomenon of the utmost familiarity… Whittaker proves an excellent, lucid guide to realms of almost unimagined obscurity.
Philip Hensher - The Spectator

This book is fascinating ... Blake the revolutionary was never more relevant


Michael Church - BBC Music Magazine

Recent Journalism

Here are a few of the articles that I've written recently that are free to read.

The Radical Visions of William Blake

A piece for Tribune on the anniversary of William Blake's birthday

Click here to read!

Anti-empire, anti-fascist, pro-suffragist: the stunning secret life of Jerusalem

A piece for The Guardian on the different uses of the hymn Jerusalem

Click here to read!

Building Jerusalem: The Making of a Hymn

A piece for The Tablet on religious interpretations of the hymn Jerusalem.

Click here to read!

Upon Clouded Hills

A piece for History Today on a century of struggle over Jerusalem's meaning

Click here to read!

JW Robertson Scott: the original champion of the countryside

A piece for Prospect on the editor of The Countryman

Click here to read!

Review of S.F. Said's Tiger

A piece for VALA magazine

Click here to read!

All Publications

All books and academic articles, as well as journalism since 2016

  1. Jerusalem: Blake, Parry and the Fight for Englishness. A history of England in the twentieth century through the lens of the hymn Jerusalem. Oxford University Press, 2022. ISBN: 978-0192845870. 256 pages. 
  2.  Bodies, Noise and Power in Industrial Music (Pop Music, Culture and Identity). Edited volume with Elizabeth Potter. Palgrave, 2022. ISBN: 978-3030924614. 216 pages. 
  3. Divine Images: The Life and Work of William Blake. A biography and guide to Blake. Reaktion Books, 2021. ISBN: 9781789142877, 354 pages. 
  4. Tech Giants, Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Journalism. A full-length study of the effects of the major technology companies on contemporary journalism. Routledge, 2019. ISBN: 978-1138499973, 208pp. 
  5. Magazine Production. Second edition. Routledge, 2016. ISBN: 978-1138122154, 196pp. 
  6. Online Journalism in Africa: Trends, Practices and Emerging Cultures. Edited volume with Hayes Mabweazara and Okoth Mudhai. Routledge, 2013. ISBN: 978-0415503747, 272pp. 
  7. William Blake and the Digital Humanities. Joint authored monograph with Roger Whitson on new ways of engaging with Blake’s work in the digital sphere. Routledge, 2013. ISBN: 978-0415656184, 224pp. 
  8. Blake 2.0: William Blake in Twentieth Century Art, Music and Culture. Edited volume with Steve Clark and Tristanne Connolly on Blake’s reception in various cultural forms during the twentieth century. Palgrave, 2012. ISBN: 0230280331, 328pp. 
  9. Producing for Web 2.0. Part of the Routledge Media Skills series. Routledge, 2009. ISBN: 978-0-415-48622-4, 238pp. 
  10.  Magazine Production. Part of the Routledge Media Skills series. Routledge, 2008. ISBN: 041543520X, 176pp. 
  11.  Blake, Modernity and Popular Culture. Edited volume with Professor Steve Clark, extending work on the critical reception of Blake in art, literature, psychology and popular media. Palgrave, 2007. ISBN: 0230008445, 233pp. 
  12.  The Cyberspace Handbook. Part of the Routledge Handbook series, combining theoretical and practical elements that explore the concepts of cyberspace and new media. Routledge 2004; ISBN: 0415168368, 321pp. 
  13.  Radical Blake: Influence and Afterlife from 1827. With Dr Shirley Dent. A collaborative project that outlines the influence of William Blake on a wide range of writers, artists, musicians and thinkers in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Palgrave 2002. ISBN: 0333986458, 237pp. 
  14. The Internet: The Basics. Text book commissioned by Routledge 2002. ISBN: 0415257468, 228pp. 
  15. Web Production for Writers and Journalists. Revised edition of Producing for the Web. Routledge 2002. ISBN: 0415272513, 161pp. 
  16. Mallarmé’s Un coup de des on CD-ROM. Legenda Press, Oxford University European Humanities Research Centre. Editor: Professor Malcolm Bowie. Essays and CD-ROM by Professor Penny Florence and Jason Whittaker Legenda 2000. ISBN 1900755491, CD and 76pp booklet. 
  17. Producing for the Web. An introductory guide to the theory and practice of producing web sites. Routledge 2000. ISBN 0415231140, 176 pp. 
  18.  William Blake and the Myths of Britain. Based on my PhD research, this is the first book-length study of Blake’s use of ancient British mythologies. Macmillan/St Martin’s Press 1999; ISBN 0333738969, 215pp.
  1. "By the Voice of the Servant of the Lord": Blake's New Jerusalem and Swedenborgianism in the work of Sheila Kaye-Smith, in William Blake’s Manuscripts, ed. Mark Crosby, in production. 
  2. Romantic Caricatures and Comics, in The Edinburgh Companion to Romanticism and the Arts, eds. Sophie Thomas and Maureen McCue, Edinburgh University Press, 2022.
  3. Blake and Music, 2021, Blake, an Illustrated Quarterly, 56.1, 2022. 
  4. All Too Human: Industrial Bodies and Anti-bodies in the Time of AIDS, chapter in Bodies, Noise and Power in Industrial Music, Palgrave, 2022. 
  5. The Place Where Contrarieties are Equally True: Blake and the Science-Fiction Counterculture, paper for a special issue of the Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, 98.1(2022). 
  6. Blake and Music, 2020, Blake, an Illustrated Quarterly, 55.1, 2021. 
  7. Blake and Big Data: Literary Data as a Challenge to Literary History, in English Literature in the World, eds. Maria Angélica Cansado and Alcinda Pinheiro, Lisbon: Edições Humus, 2021. 
  8. Blake and Music, 2019, Blake, an Illustrated Quarterly, 54.1, 2020 
  9. Blake and Music, 2018, Blake, an Illustrated Quarterly, 53.1, 2019 
  10. Blake and Music, in The Reception of William Blake in Europe, ed. Morton Paley and Sibylle Erle, London: Bloomsbury, 2019. 
  11. Jerusalem Set to Music: A Select Discography, Blake, an Illustrated Quarterly, 52.4, 2019 
  12. Comparative reflections on cartoons as snapshot, narrative and source, with Jane Chapman, Kate Allison, Andrew Kerr, and John Cafferkey in The Edinburgh history of the British and Irish press, ed. David Finkelstein, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2019. 
  13. Blake and the New Jerusalem: A Very English Form of Modernism, in Visual Culture in Britain, special edition “William Blake: Man from the Future?”, eds. Colin Trodd and Jason Whittaker, 19.3, 2018. 
  14. Blake and Music, 2017, Blake, an Illustrated Quarterly, 52.1, 2018. 
  15. Dark Angels: Blake, Milton and Lovecraft in Ridley Scott’s Prometheus, in William Blake’s Gothic Imagination, eds. Chris Bundock and Elizabeth Effinger, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2018. 
  16. The Media of Madness: Gothic transmedia and the Cthulhu Mythos, in Transgothic in Literature and Culture, ed. Jolene Zigarovich, Abingdon: Routledge, 2018.
  17.  Tactical Electronic Bodies: Noise and Mutation in Canadian Industrial Music, in Canadian Music and American Culture, eds. Tristanne Connolly and Tomoyuki Iino, Houndmills: Palgrave, 2017. 
  18. Blake Books and Digital Ecocystems, William Blake and Pedagogy, special edition Romantic Circles journal, eds. Roger Whitson and Andrew Burkett, University of Maryland, July 2016. 
  19. The Pornography of Science: Curtis, Ballard and Burroughs, in Joy Devotion: The Importance of Ian Curtis and Fan Culture, ed. Jennifer Bickerdike, London: Headpress, 2016. 
  20. The Divine Image: remaking Blake’s myths, in Myth, Literature and the Unconscious (eds. Leon Burnett, Sanja Bahun, Roderick Main), London: Karnac 2013
  21. Everyday Blake and the Digital Humanities, in Digital Romanticisms, Poetica, 80, 2013. 
  22. Albion’s Spectre: building the new Jerusalem, in Mysticism, Myth and Celtic Identity (eds. Marion Gibson, Shelley Trower, Garry Tregidga), Abingdon: Routledge, 2012. 
  23. Zoamorphosis: 250 Years of Blake Mutations, in Re-envisioning Blake, (eds. Mark Crosby, Troy Patenaude, Angus Whitehead), Houndmills: Palgrave 2012. 
  24. Mental Fight, Corporeal War and Righteous Dub: the struggle for ‘Jerusalem’, 1979-2009, in Blake 2.0 (eds. Steve Clark, Tristanne Connolly and Jason Whittaker), Houndmills: Palgrave 2012. 
  25. Review of Blake publications, Year’s Work in English Studies, 90, The English Association/Oxford University Press, 2011. 
  26. Review of Blake publications, Year’s Work in English Studies, 89, The English Association/Oxford University Press, 2010. 
  27. Trannies, Amputees and Disco Queens: Blake and Contemporary Queer Art, in Queer Blake (eds. Tristanne Connolly and Helen Bruder), Houndmills: Palgrave 2010.
  28. Review of Blake publications, Year’s Work in English Studies, 88, The English Association/Oxford University Press, 2009. 
  29. Review of Blake publications, Year’s Work in English Studies, 87, The English Association/Oxford University Press, 2008. 
  30. Gothic and New Technologies, chapter for the Routledge Companion to Gothic, eds. Catherine Spooner and Emma McEvoy, Routledge, 2007. 
  31. Dark Webs: Goth subcultures in cyberspace, study of gothic sites and communities online for Gothic Studies, 9/1 (2007). 
  32. From Hell: Blake and Evil in Popular Culture, chapter in Blake, Modernity and Popular Culture. Houndmills: Palgrave, 2007. 
  33. ‘Walking thro’ Eternity’: Blakean psychogeography and other pedestrian practices, in Reception of Blake in the Orient (eds. Steve Clark and Masashi Suzuki), London: Continuum, 2006. 
  34. Review of Blake publications, Year’s Work in English Studies, 86, The English Association/Oxford University Press, 2007. 
  35. The Matter of Britain: Blake, Milton, and the Ancient Britons, in Blake, Nation and Empire, eds. Steve Clark and David Worrall, Houndmills: Palgrave, 2006. 
  36. Review of Blake publications, Year’s Work in English Studies, 84, The English Association/Oxford University Press, 2006. 
  37. ‘The Poetical Vigour of History’: Blake’s use of Milton’s History of Britain, The Journal of the Blake Society at St James, issue 8, 2005. 
  38. Review of Blake publications, Year’s Work in English Studies, 83, The English Association/Oxford University Press, 2005. 
  39. Review of Blake publications, Year’s Work in English Studies, 82, The English Association/Oxford University Press, 2004. 
  40. Review of Blake publications, Year’s Work in English Studies, 81, The English Association/Oxford University Press, 2003. 
  41. Newton’s Compass: from Blake to BritArt, The Journal of the Blake Society at St James, issue 7, 2002
  42. A 100 year old typographic experiment on CD-ROM: the case of Mallarmé’s last poem, collaborative project with Penny Florence Point, issue 8, 1999/2000. 
  43. William Blake and the Native Tradition, The Journal of the Blake Society at St James, issue 2, 1996.
  1. The Radical Vision of William Blake, article for Tribune, November 28, 2022.
  2. Review of SF Said's Tyger, for VALA, November 28, 2022.
  3. BBC Music piece 
  4. Building Jerusalem - The Making of a Hymn, article for The Tablet, August 17, 2022.
  5. Anti-empire, anti-fascist, pro-suffragist: the stunning secret life of Proms staple Jerusalem , article for The Guardian, September 5, 2022.
  6. Aspects of History piece 
  7. Upon Clouded Hills, article on “Jerusalem” for History Today, August, 2022. 
  8. Shifting Landscapes, article on “Jerusalem” for Big Issue North, July 11, 2022. 
  9. JW Robertson Scott: the original champion of the countryside, opinion piece for Prospect, July 8, 2022. 
  10. William Blake: Prophet of Hell, opinion piece for Prospect, March 2021. 
  11. Divine Images, Vala: The Journal of the Blake Society, November, 2020. 
  12. The surprising history of “Rule, Britannia!” and Last Night of the Proms, opinion piece for Prospect, August 26, 2020. 
  13. Busting writer's block: Creativity-boosting writing exercises to get you going, feature for The Guardian, July 21, 2020. 
  14. How to plan your novel, feature for Psyche Magazine, June 3, 2020. 
  15. The Mouse that Thundered: What we get wrong about Clement Attlee, opinion piece for Prospect, January 23, 2020. 
  16. A brief history of progressive patriotism, opinion piece for Prospect, January 19, 2020. 
  17. Almost everything you know about the hymn “Jerusalem” is wrong, opinion piece for Prospect, December 26, 2019. 
  18. William Blake: The Man and the Music, monthly radio series on the influence of Blake’s poetry on composers and songwriters for Siren Radio, September 2018-May 2019. 
  19. Armistice 100: Schools Poetry Collection, anthology edited by me, Carol Ann Duffy and Imtiaz Dharker, University of Lincoln, 2018 
  20. The Forum: The Life and Works of William Blake, BBC World Service, one of four experts called upon to discuss the impact and legacy of William Blake, June 2018. 
  21. Review of William Blake in the Desolate Market, G.E. Bentley Jr, Modern Language Review, 111.3, 2016, pp.854-5. 
  22. Review of Visions of Blake: William Blake in the Art World, 1830-1930, Colin Trodd, Visual Culture in Britain, 6.3, 2015, pp.362-4. 
  23. Encyclopaedia entry: ‘Cyberspace’ in The Encyclopaedia of the Gothic, eds. William Hughes, David Punter and Andrew Smith, London: Wiley, 2013, pp.170-72.
  24. William Blake, bibliography for Oxfordbibliographies.com, 2012. 
  25. Review of Nicholas Williams’s Palgrave Advances in Blake Studies for Blake: An Illustrated Quarterly, 44.ii, pp.73-5, 2010. 
  26. Review of Edward Larrissy, Blake and Modern Literature for The Review of English Studies, 58.236, pp.579-81, 2007. 
  27. Review of John B. Pierce, The Wond’rous Art: William Blake and Writing for Blake: An Illustrated Quarterly, 38.iv, pp.155-7, 2005. 
  28. Review of Catherine Grout et al, Creating Digital Resources for the Visual Arts for the ADC-LTSN Resource Reviews database, 2004. 
  29. Review of Dustin Griffin, Patriotism and Poetry in Eighteenth-Century Britain for the BARS Bulletin and Review; issue 23, pp.19-20, 2003. 
  30. Review of Michael Phillips, William Blake: The Creation of the Songs for the BARS Bulletin and Review; issue 21, p.26. 2002. 
  31. Review of Helen Bruder’s William Blake and the Daughters of Albion in Romanticism, 7.1, pp.96-9, 2001. 
  32. ‘Soapbox: Why we believe that “Jerusalem” is not a nationalistic hymn’, with Shirley Dent. Times Higher Education Supplement, 17/8/01, p.16. 
  33. Review of K.E. Smith, An Analysis of William Blake’s Early Writings and Designs to 1790 for the BARS Bulletin and Review, issue 19, pp.13-14, 2001. 
  34. Freedom of information: Scientology on the Net, The New Humanist, vol. 115, no.4, 2000. 
  35. Review of Blake in the Nineties, eds. Worrall and Clark for the BARS Bulletin And Review, issue 18, p.25, 2000. 
  36. Review of Stanley Gardner’s The Tyger, The Lamb and the Terrible Desart in the BARS Bulletin And Review, issue 17, pp.22-3, 2000. 
  37. Review of The Tate Illuminated Blake in the BARS Bulletin And Review, issue 17, pp.23-4, 2000. 
  38. Review of Christopher Heppner’s Reading Blake’s Designs, in the BARS Bulletin And Review, issue 12, pp.15-16, 1997. 
  39. Review of Jeanne Moskal’s Blake, Ethics and Forgiveness, in the BARS Bulletin And Review, issue 10, p.12, 1996. 
  40. Review of Historicizing Blake (eds. Clark and Worrall), in the BARS Bulletin And Review, issue 9, p.19, 1995. 
  41. Review of E. P. Thompson’s Witness Against the Beast: William Blake and the Moral Law, in the BARS Bulletin And Review, issue 8, pp.11-12, 1995.
  1. Galicia talk 
  2. Jung circle talk 
  3. Visions of Albion in Felpham, the Blake Society, June 2022. 
  4. Global Blake: Afterlives in Art, Literature, Music, co-organiser for a two-day conference, January 2022. 
  5. The Writers’ Conference, 2021, co-organiser with Writing East Midlands for this four-day online conference, April 2021. 
  6. Images of the Divine in the Work of William Blake, the Blake Society, February 2021. 
  7. Arrows of Desire: Blake, Parry and the Fight for Englishness in the Twenty-First Century, keynote for Worldwide English Literature and Worldwide Literatures in English: from Manuscript to Digital, University of Jaén, December 2020. 
  8. To Lord Byron in the Wilderness: Blake, Byron, and the myth of Cain and Abel, The Byron Society, February 2020. 
  9. The Eye Altering Alters All: Blake and the Psychology of Reception in Contemporary Visual Art, William Blake and the Idea of the Artist, Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, November 2019. 
  10. England’s Green and Pleasant Land: From Blair to Brexit, University College Dublin, October 2019. Blake’s Jerusalem and English nationalism, Blake in Europe: A Symposium, Tate Britain, Millbank, September 2019. 
  11. Divine Images: The life and work of William Blake, University of Santiago de Compostela, September 2019. 
  12. ‘The Place Where Contrarieties are Equally True’: Blake and the Science-Fiction Counterculture, BARS 2019, Nottingham University, July 2019. 
  13. Blake and Big Data: Literary Data as a Challenge to Literary Theory, keynote for English Literature in the World: From Manuscript to Digital conference, University of Lisbon, May 2018. 
  14. Here be Tygers: Blakean Memes and Comics, Blake workshop at the John Rylands Library, University of Manchester, May 2018. 
  15. Blake and the New Jerusalem: A Very English Form of Modernism, Blake workshop at the Whitworth Art Gallery, University of Manchester, May 2017. 
  16. Virtual Blake, keynote for Receiving/Perceiving English Literature conference, University of Lisbon, November 2016. 
  17. Before ‘Jerusalem’: The stanzas from Milton, 1863-1915: BARS, Cardiff University, 2015. 
  18. Blake and the Graphic Novel: Blake workshop at the John Rylands Library, University of Manchester, May 2013. 
  19. Blake and the Gutenberg Parenthesis: Blake after Print: Cultures in Contact series, University of Surrey, December 2012. 
  20. The Divine Image: Remaking Blake’s Myths: public lecture for Myth, Literature and the Unconscious conference, University of Essex, September 2010. 
  21. Albion’s Spectre: Blake and the BNP: keynote for Myth, Mysticism and Nationalism conference, University of Exeter, July 2010. 
  22. Machine-Readable Blake: William Blake and Web 2.0: for Digital Romanticisms conference, University of Tokyo, April 2010. 
  23. Image 2.0: Digital Media Futures: Co-organiser of UCF international conference on digital media in photography, film, animation and the arts, Tremough, Sept. 2009. 
  24. Presented opening introduction on from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0. The Prosody Network for Metre Matters conference, University of Exeter, 2008. 
  25. Blake, Spare and the Left-Hand Path, for Following William Blake Conference, Manchester University, February 2008. 
  26. Zoamorphosis: 250 Years of Blake Mutations for Blake at 250 Conference, York University, August 2007. 
  27. Mental Fight, Corporeal War and Righteous Dub: The Struggle for ‘Jerusalem’ in Popular Music: conference paper for Blake and Conflict conference, University College, Oxford, September 2006. 
  28. Comets, starry wheels and folding space: interplanetary travel in Milton: on Blake’s use of Enlightenment cosmology, for Eighteenth-Century Narratives Workshop, co-hosted between UCF and University of Exeter, September 2006. 
  29. Turbulence, Trivia and Technology in Computer Games: paper on theorising video games presented at Nottingham Trent University, May 2005. 
  30. Walking thro’ eternity: Blake’s psychogeography and other pedestrian practices: paper on Blakean deterritorialisations for the Blake and the Orient conference, Kyoto University, November 2003. 
  31. Blake and the Popular: Co-organiser for conference dealing with Blake’s posthumous reception, particularly as it has impacted on popular culture. Strawberry Hill, September 2002. 
  32. Also presented a paper ‘On Hell: Blake and evil in popular culture’ discussing the use of Blake by Alan Moore and other writers such as Thomas Harris, Michael Dibdin and J.G. Ballard. Newton’s Compass: Blake and Britart: paper for symposium on Blake’s large colour prints, Tate Britain, February 2002. 
  33. Blake: Prophet or Profit: Joint presentation with Dr Shirley Dent to the Sustaining Romanticism conference at Liverpool University, July 2001. 
  34. Blake and the Ancient Britons: on Blake’s use of Enlightenment historiography and radical antiquarianism to provide an alternative history of Britain. Presented to the Blake, Nation and Empire conference at Tate Britain, December 2000. 
  35. “Sacred Tributes of the Bard”: National and Nationalist transformations of the Bard in eighteenth-century poetry: on Gray’s use of Evan Evans’s bardic poetry to formulate a national, imperial figure, presented to the Early Romantics Revisited conference, Strawberry Hill, 2000. 
  36. Blake and the Deist Controversy: a discussion of Blake’s relationship to deistic and atheistic texts and philosophies, presented at the conference Friendly Enemies: Blake and the Enlightenment, University of Essex, August 2000. 
  37. “The Poetical Vigour of History”: Blake’s use of Milton’s History of Britain: a paper to the Blake Society, April 2000. 
  38. Aesthetic fetishes: Art and desire in J. G. Ballard’s Vermilion Sands: Incense and Insensibility: Psychedelia and Science Fiction in the 1960s and 1970s conference, Liverpool University, June 1999. 
  39. The Scoundrel Bard: Art and artifice in the poetry of Ossian: Romantic Fringes conference at Glasgow University, April 1999. 
  40. I also chaired a Blake panel at this conference. Confidence without Cruel Particulars: Frances Burney and the Madness of King George: the seventh one-day Romantic Studies conference, Romantic Correspondence, at Bristol University, March 1999. 
  41. Un Coup de Dés: a presentation of the collaborative project to transfer Mallarmé’s Un Coup de Dés onto CD-ROM at the Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts, July 1998. 
  42. William Blake and the Native Tradition: summary of my PhD research presented at the Blake 1794/1994 conference at Strawberry Hill, July 1994.