FACULTY SPOTLIGHT: Leya Landau

What do you teach at NYUL?
I teach Writing London: a course that examines and encourages students to investigate literary representations of the city in a variety of novels, poetry, films, essays and shorts stories at particular times in the history of London; and starting in the spring, Literatures in English II: Literatures of the British Isles and British Empire 1660-1900.

What do you enjoy most about working with NYUL students?
The sheer diversity and range of the student body: we have students from all over the world and this brings a wonderful kaleidoscopic perspective and energy to the classroom and to a little corner of Bloomsbury. I'm also constantly impressed by how articulate our students are and appreciate their punctuality and ability to hand papers in on time!

Are you currently working on any research projects?
I've recently published an article on the representation of Brighton in the writings of late 18th- and early 19th-century novelist and diarist, Fanny Burney; it's also a study of the changing literary and visual responses to the sea and seaside in late 18th-century and Romantic literature. It appears in Coastal Cultures of the Long Nineteenth Century (Edinburgh University Press, 2018). The bigger project I'm working on is a book about the female urban imagination in the eighteen century and Romantic period.

How do you make the most of being in London in your classes?
NYU London's location in Bedford Square makes it a gift for teaching a course like Writing London. We can pop round the corner to the British Museum to see where Keats was inspired to write his poem "On Seeing the Elgin Marbles"; a walk around local Bloomsbury streets and squares brings the London writings of Virigina Woolf and her circle to life; and the two-hour Dickens walk from Temple and the Inns of Court to Covent Garden maps out the life and works of perhaps London's greatest chronicler. The open classroom windows also provide a fitting -- and sometimes noisy -- soundscape of traffic, chatter and screaming sirens that complement -- and sometimes compete with! -- our classroom discussions.

What is your favourite area of London, and why?
I'm constantly drawn back to the South Bank: the collision of music, film, theatre, art, bookstalls and cafes, and spectacular views down the river are an antidote to any creative blocks. A special mention, too, to Sunny Hill Park in North West London: a wonderful hilly park where I like to run -- it has fantastic views to the north of the city and to the west, over Wembley Football Stadium, especially when it is lit up at night. The log cabin cafe there serves some of the best coffee in London.