Chris Morgan

Vice Principal for Academics, St. Mary’s High School, Annapolis, Maryland, USA

Chris completed his PhD English Literature in 1999. He became Academic Dean at St. Mary’s High School Annapolis in 2002. His duties involve the oversight, evaluation, and development of curricula, the supervision, evaluation, and development of faculties as well as the development and administration of academic programs.

Chris is interested in contemporary British and American poetry, transatlantic modernism (Joyce, Lawrence, Hemingway and Williams in particular) as well as the relationship between literature and the environment. These research interests are reflected in his book R.S. Thomas: Identity, Environment and Deity. Additionally, Chris has a passion for writing, in particular poetry and short fiction. He has written and published a number of short stories and he is a regular contributor to the Australian surfing journal White Horses. ‌ 

“I arrived in Aberystwyth as a stranger from a country across an ocean. I had never visited the United Kingdom and had no acquaintances there. But what I subsequently discovered in Aberystwyth I have carried in me like a treasure since. I mean the stunning natural beauty of Wales that encircles Aberystwyth and that became for me a source of endless delight and renewal. I mean the changing moods of that passionate city itself, reflecting the sea and the sky, and the strong inhabitants that came to accept me as one of their own. I mean the vibrant intellectual community of Aberystwyth University, and more particularly the Department of English and Creative Writing, where rigorous intellectual fellowship ripened into personal friendships. Following three years of intensive research, study, and writing in the field of contemporary poetry, I became aware not only of an intellectual growth accomplished within the Hugh Owen Building and the National Library of Wales, but of significant expansions in the heart as well. Aberystwyth can affect one in precisely that way. The sense of accomplishment I felt upon completing my studies was tinged with grief, and I realised later that this was indicative of the deep roots I had grown, roots that, despite my departure, remain alive and continue to grow today. I look back on my years of graduate study at Aberystwyth University as time of unparalleled growth and intense happiness, a cherished passage into my present life.”