Clara Tuite is Professor of English in the School of Culture and Communication, Faculty of Arts at the University of Melbourne, where she joined the faculty in 1997. She earned her BA Honours degree from the Australian National University in 1988 and her PhD from the University of Sydney in 1996. Tuite specializes in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century literature and cultural history, focusing on the historical, cultural, and social contexts of Romantic literature. She has particular interest and expertise in the works of Jane Austen and George Gordon, Lord Byron. Her research explores Romantic literature and culture through the lenses of the history of the literary institution, sociability, fashion, history of emotions, sexuality studies, and the persistence of literary and popular Romanticisms in contemporary culture. As Co-Director and Lead Researcher of the Faculty of Arts Research Unit in Enlightenment, Romanticism and Contemporary Culture (ERCC), she contributes significantly to interdisciplinary studies in these areas within English and Theatre Studies.

In recognition of her scholarly achievements, Tuite was elected Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities in 2017. She received the Elma Dangerfield Prize for Best Book from the International Association of Byron Societies in 2015 for Lord Byron and Scandalous Celebrity (Cambridge University Press, 2015). Her debut monograph, Romantic Austen: Sexual Politics and the Literary Canon (Cambridge University Press, 2002), was a finalist for the Modern Language Association Prize for a First Book in 2003. Tuite has held prestigious research fellowships, including at the Rockefeller Center in Bellagio (2004), the Center for Urban Cultural History at the University of Massachusetts, Boston (2011), the Humanities Research Centre at the Australian National University (2012), Chawton House Library in the UK (2015), and Trinity College, Cambridge (2017). Notable publications include 30 Great Myths About Jane Austen (Wiley-Blackwell, 2020, co-authored with Claudia L. Johnson), Byron in Context (Cambridge University Press, 2020, editor), and recent articles such as "Bog" in New Literary History (2025), "Precarious Austen: A Shabby Genteel Story" in Romanticism (2023), and "Byron Lived Here: The Palazzo Guiccioli" in Image&Narrative (2022). Her work has advanced understandings of celebrity, scandal, and literary sociability in Romantic studies.

Professional Email: clarat@unimelb.edu.au