Prof David Herd

Prof David Herd

Director of Impact

The Berry Chair of Literature & Human Rights

Phone
+44 (0)1334 46 1879
Email
D.Herd@st-andrews.ac.uk
Office
Room 21
Location
Castle House

 

Biography

David Herd is a poet, critic and co-organiser of the project Refugee Tales. His work is at the intersection of literature and human rights.

David’s critical history, was published by Oxford University Press in September 2023. His most recent collection of poetry, (2022), was a Book of the Year in the Australian Review of Books. He has published widely on the politics of human movement and on modern and contemporary poetry and poetics and has held visiting fellowships at George Mason University, Simon Fraser University and the Writing Center Gloucester, MA.  His edited volume, , was published by Manchester University Press in 2016.

In collaboration with Anna Pincus and colleagues at Gatwick Detainees Welfare Group, David has co-organised the project since 2014, through which he has helped articulate the call for a future without detention. Refugee Tales makes its call by sharing the stories of people who have experienced indefinite detention in the UK. Stories have been published in four volumes by .

David is currently Co-Investigator on the AHRC project ‘Archive of Solidarity: Precarity, Creativity and Shared Future-Making across Closed Borders’ (PI, Dr Ozlem Biner, SOAS). He was Principal Investigator on the British Academy project from 2019-2022.

PhD supervision

  • Nimaya Lemal
  • Viktoriia Medvied

Selected publications

  • Saunders, N. & Herd, D., 24 Mar 2026

    Research output: Other contribution

  • Herd, D., 1 Jan 2025, Blackbox Manifold, 33.

    Research output: Contribution to specialist publication › Article

  • Herd, D. (Editor) & Pincus, A. (Editor), 18 Jul 2024, Manchester: Comma Press. 168 p.

    Research output: Book/Report › Book

  • Herd, D., 28 Sept 2023, Oxford: Oxford University Press. 287 p. (Oxford mid-century studies)

    Research output: Book/Report › Book

  • Herd, D., 1 Jan 2022, Swindon: Shearsman Books. 91 p.

    Research output: Book/Report › Book