Research Interests
- History and Theory of Satire
- Humour Studies
- Law and Literature/Humanities
- Early modern studies
- Eighteenth-century studies
Professor Andrew Bricker
Professor Andrew Benjamin Bricker is Associate Professor of English Literature in the Department of Literary Studies at Ghent University in Belgium and a Senior Fellow at the Andrew W. Mellon Society of Fellows in Critical Bibliography at the Rare Book School at the University of Virginia.
He is currently an Academic Visitor for 2024-2025 at the Hub of Law and the Humanities at the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies at the University of London and will be a Visiting Fellow at Magdalene College at the University of Cambridge during Lent Term 2025.
He is the author of Libel and Lampoon: Satire in the Courts, 1670-1792 (Oxford University Press, 2022), which focuses on the development of defamation law in relation to written, visual, and dramatic satire during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in Britain, and which was shortlisted for the Kenshur Prize (Center for Eighteenth-Century Studies, Indiana University); the Glasscock Prize, Glasscock Center for Humanities Research, Texas A&M University); and the Book Award for Literatures in the English Language (European Society for the Study of English). He is also co-author (with Eric Smith) of We the Raptors: Thirty Players, Thirty Stories, Thirty Years (Simon & Schuster; forthcoming Fall 2025).
Starting in March 2025, Bricker will be Principal Investigator for DELIAH: Democratic Literacy and Humour (2025-2029), which is funded by the Horizon Europe Framework Programme for Research and Innovation. He is a member of the Cartoons in Court research team, which is funded by a Constructive Advanced Thinking Grant from the Network of European Institutes of Advanced Study; and serves as Co-Coordinator of the Literature, Law, and Society Research Group at the Netherlands Research School for Literary Studies (OSL). He received his B.A. and M.A. from the University of Toronto and his Ph.D. from Stanford University. Before joining UGent, he was an Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow in the Humanities at McGill University and a Killam Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of British Columbia.
Qualifications
- Ph.D. in English Literature, 2014, Stanford University (U.S.A.)
- M.A. in English Literature, 2006, University of Toronto (Canada)
- B.A. (Honours with Distinction), English Literature and Philosophy, 2005, Victoria College at the University of Toronto (Canada)
Career/Research Highlights
2025 – 2029 Principal Investigator, DELIAH: Democratic Literacy and Humour (HORIZON-CL2-2024-DEMOCRACY-01-08). Horizon Europe Framework Programme, Research and Innovation, European Commission
2025 Visiting Fellowship (Lent Term). Magdalene College, University of Cambridge, UK
2024 – 2025 Academic Visitor, LHub: Hub of Law and the Humanities
Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, School of Advanced Study, U of London, UK
2023 – 2025 Strategic Institutional Partnership Renewal, UGent – University of Toronto, Faculty Research Fund, Faculty of Arts and Philosophy, UGent
2022 – 2024 Rise Grant for a Scientific Research Network, ENLIGHT University Network. HACIDA: Humor and Conflict in the Digital Age
2020 – 2024 Constructive Advanced Thinking Grant, Network of European Institutes of Advanced Study: CEU-IAS, Budapest; NIAS, Amsterdam; IIAS, Jerusalem; and SCAS, Uppsala
June 2018 Law and Humanities Junior Scholar Workshop, Stanford Law School
Center for Law and Culture, Columbia Law School
May 2018 Bloomington Eighteenth-Century Studies Workshop, Center for Eighteenth-Century Studies, Indiana University, Bloomington
2016 – 2018 Killam Postdoctoral Research Fellowship. Department of English, University of British Columbia
2014 – 2016 Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship in the Humanities. Department of English, McGill University
2014 – 2015 Alden Dissertation Prize, Department of English, Stanford University
2013 – 2016 Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship in Critical Bibliography. Rare Book School, University of Virginia
April 2015 Swann Foundation Fellowship, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
May 2015 American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies Bibliographical Studies Fellowship. Bibliographical Society of America
2013 – 2014 Andrew W. Mellon Dissertation Completion Fellowship. American Council of Learned Societies
2012 – 2013 Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Dissertation Fellowship. Faculty of Arts & Sciences, Stanford University
August 2013 American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies–William Andrews Clark Memorial Library Fellowship, University of California, Los Angeles
May 2013 Visiting Research Fellowship, Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University
Jul.-Sep. 2012 Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Research Fellowship. Huntington Library, San Marino, California
2012 Modern British History & Culture Dissertation Research Fellowship. School of Humanities and Sciences, Stanford University
2011 Fellowship, Summer School on the Cultural Study of the Law. Institute for English and American Studies, University of Osnabrück, Germany
2007 – 2011 SSHRC Doctoral Fellowship. Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada
Professional Affiliations
- Senior Fellow, The Andrew W. Mellon Society of Fellows in Critical Bibliography, Rare Book School, University of Virginia
- Co-Coordinator, Literature, Law and Society Group, Netherlands Research School for Literary Studies (OSL)
- Member, "Cartoons in Court," Institute for Advanced Study at the Central European University
- Academic Visitor, LHub: Hub of Law and the Humanities at the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London
Selected Publications
Libel and Lampoon: Satire in the Courts, 1670–1792. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2022.
With Brigitte Adriaensen, Alberto Godioli, and Ted Laros. “Humor and the Law: Laughter as Critique/The Limits of Laughter.” Journal of Law, Culture and the Humanities (2023 online; forthcoming in print). https://doi.org/10.1177/17438721231177647
“The Visual and the Verbal: The Intermediality of English Satire, c. 1695–1750.” Changing Satire: Transformations and Continuities in Europe, 1600 – 1830. Ed. Cecilia Rosengren, Per Sivefors and Rikard Wingård. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2022. 231 – 261. ISBN: 9781526146120.
“Laughter: Enlightenment Philosophies of Laughter, from Superiority Theory to Incongruity Theory.” A Cultural History of Comedy in the Age of Enlightenment. Ed. Elizabeth Kraft. A Cultural History of Comedy, 6 vol. London: Bloomsbury, 2021. 171 – 196. https://doi.org/10.5040/9781350187733.ch-007
“The Functions of Legal Literature and Case Reporting before and after Stare Decisis.” Oxford Handbook of Law and Humanities. Ed. Simon Stern, Bernadette Meyler and Maksymilian Del Mar. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020. 617 – 636. ISBN: 9780190695620.