Stephen Tardif

Stephen Tardif is a Ph.D. Candidate in English at Harvard University. His research centers on the relation between literary form and self-formation in nineteenth-century British literature. Arguing that artistic creation has the performative character of a speech act, he analyzes literature in terms of its effect on both the work and its author. His dissertation examines the internal feedback produced by the act of composition on literary form itself and considers, as well, the ways that Victorian writers used their art as a form of therapy, a means of discernment, and a mode of self-definition. Stephen holds a B.A. and an M.A. from the University of Toronto, and has published on Gerard Manley Hopkins, Thomas Hardy, and James Joyce.