Professor David Roberts

National Teaching Fellow 2013 Professor David Roberts has taught at Birmingham City University for 11 years following appointments at universities in the UK and Japan. He completed his first degree at Bristol University and his DPhil at Worcester College Oxford. He has been a Head of School for ten years and combines his current post as Dean of Faculty with a strong commitment to teaching and research. His teaching these days focuses on renaissance and restoration drama. He is particularly interested in using the resources of Early English Books Online to open up the Early Modern period to students of drama. But he has also enjoyed many happy hours teaching childrens fiction, gothic literature, poetry and the environment, creative writing and the early English novel. He has a fervent belief in the capacity of literary studies to transform students understanding of the world and to teach demanding disciplines of thought, research and expression. David has published widely on theatre history. His 2010 Cambridge University Press study of the actor Thomas Betterton was short-listed for the Theatre Library Association's George Freedley Prize, and his edition of Betterton's book and picture catalogue is due out this year from the Society for Theatre Research. Current projects include a new introduction to Restoration Drama for Cambridge University Press. He has also worked on three volumes in the Oxford World's Classics series and written two textbooks for Kogan Page. Occasionally he writes programme essays for the Royal Opera House and fiction for no one in particular. He also serves as Orator at Birmingham City University. Currently David is thrilled to be Executive Dean of Performance, Media and English, a faculty which consists of the Birmingham Conservatoire, the Birmingham School of Acting, the Birmingham School of Media, and the School of English. The Faculty combines and blends different pedagogies to produce exceptional high standards of performance and achievement. David is proud to have taught and been read by thousands of university students the world over, but most of all to be the father of two more.