Liam Benison (7212-25F2-7D7C)

Curriculum Vitae

Liam Benison

Dr. Liam Benison is a researcher in imagination literacy at the Institute of Social Sciences, University of Lisbon. As part of the ERA Chair on Imagination and Society, his research investigates the role of the utopian imagination in fostering sociopolitical change since the sixteenth century, contributing to the history of knowledge, privacy, public health, historical geography, and Indigenous and European knowledge exchange. He is a long-term collaborator in the Centre for English Translation and Anglo-Portuguese Studies (CETAPS) at the University of Porto, and an affiliated scholar of the Centre for Privacy Studies at the University of Copenhagen. As part of a three-year Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) Seal of Excellence research position at the University of Verona, he taught library science in Italian. His publications include the edited volume Utopian Possibilities: Models, Theories, Critiques (U.Porto Press, 2023), articles in the journals KNOW and Paratesto, and various book chapters. He is the former editor of Practice Nursing journal (2001–2014). His co-edited volume Privacy in Early Modern Paratexts (with Jelena Bakic) is in review for Brill's series ‘Studies in the History of Privacy’.

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Identification

Personal identification

Full name: Liam Benison

Citation names

Benison, Liam

Author identifiers

Ciência ID: 7212-25F2-7D7C
ORCID iD: 0000-0002-4989-4370

Email addresses

lbenison@letras.up.pt (Professional)
liam.benison@ics.ulisboa.pt (Professional)

Knowledge fields

Humanities - Languages and Literatures - General Literature Studies

Languages

Language	Speaking	Reading	Writing	Listening
English (Mother tongue)
Portuguese	Upper intermediate (B2)	Advanced (C1)	Upper intermediate (B2)	Upper intermediate (B2)
Italian	Advanced (C1)	Advanced (C1)	Advanced (C1)	Advanced (C1)
French	Advanced (C1)	Advanced (C1)	Advanced (C1)	Advanced (C1)
Spanish; Castilian	Upper intermediate (B2)	Upper intermediate (B2)	Upper intermediate (B2)	Upper intermediate (B2)
German	Intermediate (B1)	Intermediate (B1)	Intermediate (B1)	Intermediate (B1)
Dutch		Elementary (A2)
Old English (ca. 550-1100)		Advanced (C1)

Education

	Degree	Classification
2015/09/01 - 2020/11/26 Concluded	Text and Event in Early Modern Europe (Erasmus Mundus Joint Doctorate) (Doctorate) Major in Literature and Culture Universidade do Porto Faculdade de Letras, Portugal University of Kent School of English, United Kingdom "Reduced to a Map: Poetic Geographies of 'Australia', 1606–1708" (THESIS/DISSERTATION)	Distinction
1994/03/01 - 1998/12/31 Concluded	Master of Arts (Magister) Major in Old English Literature and Culture The University of Melbourne, Australia "Translation in Old English Literature: The Politics of Christian Conversion" (THESIS/DISSERTATION)	H2A
1995/04/10 - 1995/05/10 Concluded	Teaching English as a Foreign Language to Adults (CTEFLA) (Licence) Major in Language teaching Holmes Institute, Australia	Pass B
1988/01/07 - 1993/12/01 Concluded	Bachelor of Arts (Bachelor) Major in English The University of Melbourne, Australia	H2A

Affiliation

Other Careers

	Category Host institution	Employer
2001/01/26 - 2014/11/30	Senior Technician (Senior Technician)	Mark Allen Group, United Kingdom

Positions / Appointments

	Category Host institution	Employer
2026/07/01 - 2029/06/30	Postdoctoral Researcher	Universidade de Lisboa Instituto de Ciências Sociais, Portugal

Others

	Category Host institution	Employer
2022/05/01 - Current	Affiliated Scholar	Centre for Privacy Studies, University of Copenhagen, Denmark

2022/01/07 - 2028/07/31	ARUS (Advanced Research in Utopian Studies) postdoctoral researcher	Centre for English Translation and Anglo-Portuguese Studies, Portugal
	Centre for English Translation and Anglo-Portuguese Studies, Portugal (...)
2022/12/20 - 2025/12/19	Researcher and Teacher	Università degli Studi di Verona, Italy
	Università degli Studi di Verona, Italy

Projects

Grant

	Designation	Funders
2022/12/20 - 2025/12/19	Privutopia B37G22000830006 Post-doc Fellow Università degli Studi di Verona, Italy	Ongoing
2015/09/01 - 2018/08/31	Text and Event in Early Modern Europe (TEEME) EMJD TEEME PhD Student Fellow University of Kent, United Kingdom Universidade do Porto, Portugal	Concluded

Other

	Designation	Funders
2022/07/01 - 2025/07/31	Portals on Privacy in Early Modern Utopian Literature (unfunded) 01010 Post-doc Centre for English Translation and Anglo-Portuguese Studies, Portugal	Ongoing
2001/01/26 - 2014/11/30	Practice Nursing ISSN: 0964-9271 Editor Mark Allen Group, United Kingdom

Outputs

Publications

Book chapter	Benison, Liam. "Ten Sailors and Five Persons of Distinction: A Reassessment of a Meeting in the Southland in 1658". In The Palgrave Handbook of Global Oceanic Encounters through History, edited by Lynette Russell; Haworth, David; Penman, Leigh; Stevens, Leonie. Cham, Switzerland: Springer Nature, 2026. In press Benison, Liam. "Vestiges of Private Dialogues in Early Modern Utopian Literature". In Practices of Privacy: Vestiges of Dialogue, edited by Annemie Leemans, Natacha Klein Käfer, Jelena Bakic, Liam Benison, edited by Leemans, Annemie Daniel Gerda; Benison, Liam; Bakic, Jelena; Klein Kafer, Natacha. Leuven, Belgium: Peeters (Academia Belgica), 2026. Under revision Benison, Liam. "Disclosures of Private Information in the Manuscript Paratexts of Hendrik Smeeks’ Krinke Kesmes (1708)". In Privacy in Early Modern Paratexts, edited by Benison, Liam; Bakic, Jelena. Leiden, Netherlands: Brill, 2026. Submitted Benison, Liam; Bakic, Jelena. "Why Paratexts as Sources for the Study of Privacy?". In Privacy in Early Modern Paratexts, edited by Benison, Liam; Bakic, Jelena. Leiden, Netherlands: Brill, 2026. Submitted Benison, Liam. "Talking Privately in Utopia: Ideals of Silence and Dissimulation in Smeeks' Krinke Kesmes (1708)". In Tracing Private Conversations in Early Modern Europe: Talking in Everyday Life, edited by Johannes Ljungberg; Natacha Klein Käfer, 81-114. London, United Kingdom: Palgrave Macmillan, 2024. Published Benison, Liam. "Introduction: Towards Utopian Possibilities". In Utopian Possibilities: Models, Theories, Critiques, 27-32. Porto, Portugal: U.Porto Press, 2023. Published Benison, Liam. "Exchanges of Knowledge at the Private-Public Divide in Smeeks's Krinke Kesmes". In Utopian Possibilities: Models, Theories, Critiques, edited by Liam Benison, 101-108. Porto, Portugal: U.Porto Press, 2023. Published Benison, Liam. "Geographical Poetics". In The Palgrave Handbook of Utopian and Dystopian Literatures, edited by Peter Marks; Jennifer Wagner Lawlor; Fátima Vieira, 537-547. London, United Kingdom: Palgrave Macmillan, 2022. Published • 10.1007/978-3-030-88654-7_42 Benison, Liam. "How to Write for Publication". In Handbook of Practice Nursing, edited by Martin, Jeannett; Lucas, Julia. London, United Kingdom: Churchill Livingstone / Elsevier, 2004. Published Benison, Liam. "Translation during King Alfred's Reign: The Politics of Conversion and Truth". In The Medieval Translator 6: Traduire au Moyen Age, edited by Ellis, Roger; Tixier, René; Weitemeier, Bernd. Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 1998. Published
Book review	Benison, Liam. "Futuristic Fiction, Utopia, and Satire in the Age of the Enlightenment: Samuel Madden’s Memoirs of the Twentieth Century (1733), ed. Giulia Iannuzzi (Brepols, 2023)". (2026): In press
Conference abstract	Moreira, Luciano; Benison, Liam; Pierazzo, Jaqueline; Cerqueira, Tânia; Gonçalves, Alice; Caetano, Joana; Isabel Relvas. Corresponding author: Moreira, Luciano. "The making of a sustainable digital humanities lab: A values-oriented approach". Paper presented in Arts and Humanities in Digital Transition 2023, 2023. Published
Edited book	Benison, Liam; Bakic, Jelena, ed. Privacy in Early Modern Paratexts. Leiden, Netherlands: Brill. 2026. Submitted • Editor Benison, Liam, ed. Utopian Possibilities: Models, Theories, Critiques. Porto, Portugal: U.Porto Press. 2023. Published • https:/doi.org/10.21747/978-989-746-359-4/uto • Editor
Journal article	Benison, Liam. "The Potential of Utopian Imagination". Via Panoramica: Revista de Estudos Anglo-Americano 14 1 (2025): 15-21. https://ojs.letras.up.pt/index.php/VP/issue/view/964. Open access • Published Benison, Liam. ""Catching Birds in the Net": Paratexts of Deception and Persuasion in Early Modern Utopias". Paratesto 20 (2023): 25-39. Published • https://doi.org/10.19272/202305901002 Benison, Liam. "Nurses need PTSD support in the aftermath of COVID-19". British Journal of Nursing 32 10 (2023): 460-461. https://doi.org/10.12968/bjon.2023.32.10.460. Published • 10.12968/bjon.2023.32.10.460 Benison, Liam. "Negotiations at the Border of Knowledge: The Paradox of Privacy in Early Modern Utopia". KNOW: A Journal on the Formation of Knowledge 7 1 (2023): 61-89. https://doi.org/10.1086/724825. Published Benison, Liam. "Gábor Gelléri and Rachel Willie, eds., Travel and Conflict in the Early Modern World (Routledge, 2020) [Review]". SEDERI Yearbook 32 (2022): 123-127. http://www.sederi.org/yearbook/sederi-32/. Published Benison, Liam. "Primary care networks: an opportunity to improve community wound care". British Journal of Community Nursing 25 3 (2020): S20-S25. https://doi.org/10.12968/bjcn.2020.25.sup3.s20. Published • 10.12968/bjcn.2020.25.sup3.s20 Benison, Liam. "Raising the bar against discrimination in social care". Nursing and Residential Care 22 1 (2020): 12-17. https://doi.org/10.12968/nrec.2020.22.1.12. Published • 10.12968/nrec.2020.22.1.12 Benison, Liam. "Early Medieval Science: The Evidence of Bede". Endeavour 24 3 (2000): 111-116. Published
Journal issue	Benison, Liam. "Utopian Imagination: Power to Change the Present". Via Panoramica: Revista de Estudos Anglo-Americanos 14 1 (2025): https://ojs.letras.up.pt/index.php/VP/issue/view/964. Published • Editor
Newsletter article	Benison, Liam. "Privacy and Health in Utopia", Centre for Privacy Studies Blog, 2026, https://privacy.hypotheses.org/author/liambenison. Benison, Liam. "Tracing Impressions of Privacy in Paratexts [blogpost]", Centre for Privacy Studies Blog, 2024, https://privacy.hypotheses.org/author/liambenison. Benison, Liam; Bakic, Jelena. "Past Privacy Matters [blogpost]", Centre for Privacy Studies Blog, 2024, https://privacy.hypotheses.org/author/jelenaandliam. Benison, Liam. "Utopian Privacy [blogpost]", Centre for Privacy Studies Blog, 2022, https://privacy.hypotheses.org/author/liambenison.
Thesis / Dissertation	Benison, Liam. "Reduced to a Map: Poetic Geographies of 'Australia', 1606-1708". PhD, Universidade do Porto Faculdade de Letras, 2020.

Activities

Oral presentation

	Presentation title	Event name Host (Event location)
2025/11/25	”Healing Utopia”: em direção a uma prescrição para a mudança prosocial	III Encontro de Investigação FLUP: ‘Mapear Saberes, Redes e Intersecções' University of Porto, Faculty of Arts and Humanities (Porto, Portugal)
2025/11/12	La privacy e la salute nell’utopismo della prima età moderna [Privacy and health in early modern utopianism]	Lecture for modern history class of Prof Francesca Russo Università degli Studi Suor Orsola Benincasa (Naples, Italy)
2025/10/14	”HealingUtopia”: Toward a Prescription for a Prosocial Change	Lund Global History Seminar Lund University History Department (Lund, Sweden)
2025/10/09	Utopian Visions of Early Modern Public Health Knowledge (part of panel convened by Natacha Klein Käfer, ‘Health Economy in the Early Modern Period: New Perspectives on Health Ideals, Practices, and Knowledge Agents’)	The History of Knowledge Conference Lund University (Lund, Sweden)
2025/10/07	Early Modern Utopian Visions of Privacy	Brown-Bag Meeting Centre for Privacy Studies, University of Copenhagen (Copenhagen, Denmark)
2025/07/02	Traces of Private Conversation in Early Modern Utopian Literature	25th International Conference of the Utopian Studies Society/Europe: 'Ageing, Intergenerational Relationships and Utopia' University of Valencia Faculty of Philology, Translation and Communication (Valencia, Spain)
2025/05/16	Introduction to Adobe Creative Cloud in Science Communication, Workshop Part 2	CETAPS, University of Porto, FLUP I&D (Porto, Portugal)
2025/03/20	Privacy in Early Modern Utopian Imaginaries of Health (part of panel “Health and Privacy”, convened by Prof. Mette Birkedal Bruun)	Renaissance Society of America conference Renaissance Society of America (Boston, United States)
2025/02/26	Introduction to Adobe Creative Cloud in Science Communication, Workshop Part 1	CETAPS, University of Porto, FLUP I&D (Porto, Portugal)
2024/03/22	Strategies for the Publication and Concealment of Private Knowledge in Early Modern Maps of "Australia", as part of the Panel: "Privacy in Context IV: Engaging new sources", convened by Prof. Mette Birkedal Bruun	RSA Chicago 2024 Conference Renaissance Society of America (Chicago, United States)
2023/11/23	The Construction and Limits of Public Geographical Knowledge of the “Southland” in the Seventeenth Century	History of Knowledge Conference University of Porto (Porto, Portugal)
2023/11/22	(with Luciano Moreira) Privacy in French Utopian Literature during the Enlightenment: A Distant-Reading Approach to the Heuristic Zones of Privacy	History of Knowledge Conference, University of Porto (Porto, Portugal)
2023/07/14	Observation and Omission in Seventeenth-Century Print and Manuscript Cartographies of the "Australian" Coast	International Society for the History of the Map (ISHMap) Symposium: "Intersections in Map History" Max Planck Institute for the History of Science (Berlin, Germany)
2023/07/07	Geographic Imaginaries of Early Modern Privacy in Utopian Literature	23rd Conference of the Utopian Studies Society Europe Babes-Bolyai University (Cluj, Romania)
2023/03/22	Un'esperienza dell'editoria inglese: Interfaccie specializzate e praticanti [An experience of English publishing: The specialist-practitioner interface] (guest lecture in Italian)	Professor Federica Formiga's MA Course in Publishing University of Verona (Verona, Italy)
2023/03/21	Paratesti utopici della prima età moderna [Early modern utopian paratexts] (guest lecture in Italian)	Professor Federica Formiga's BA Course in the History of the Book University of Verona (Verona, Italy)
2022/12/01	Portals to Early Modern Privacy through Utopian Dialogues	Second Practices of Privacy Symposium: “Vestiges of Dialogue and its Places” Academia Belgica, Royal Netherlands Institute in Rome and Danish Institute in Rome (Rome, Italy)
2022/07/15	Hope and Time in Premodern and Modern Utopia	22nd Conference of the Utopian Studies Society Europe University of Brighton (Brighton, United Kingdom)
2021/12/12	Exchanges of Public and Private Knowledges in a pre-Enlightenment Utopia Set in Terra Australis, part of the Panel: "Crossing the Public–Private Divide in Global Utopianism", organized by Liam Benison	21st Conference of the Utopian Studies Society, Europe (online via Zoom) University of Porto (Porto, Portugal)
2021/06/04	Dissimulation as a Form of Early Modern Privacy: A Utopian Perspective (online via Zoom)	Privacy Studies conference: "Early Modern Notions of Privacy and the Private" Centre for Privacy Studies, University of Copenhagen (Copenhagen, Denmark)
2021/05/15	Diplomacy and Go-Betweens in the Australian Aboriginal Land Rights Struggle (Guest Lecture via Zoom)	Modern History (MA course) taught by Dr. Renu Elizabeth Abraham O.P. Jindal Global University (Sonipat, India)
2021/02/23	Ten Sailors and Five 'Men of Esteem': Understanding a Dutch Account of 'Aboriginal Australia' in 1658	Maritime History & Culture Seminars National Maritime Museum (Royal Museums Greenwich) (London, United Kingdom)
2020/04/24	Utopia as a Source for Understanding Early Modern Privacy	Knowledge in the Making: Practices of Privacy Symposium, held online via Zoom, 24 April to 31 May Centre for Privacy Studies, University of Copenhagen (Copenhagen, Denmark)
2019/07/03	The Map View: Environmental Transformation in Early Modern Utopias	'Utopia, Dystopia and Climate Change', 20th International Conference of the Utopian Studies Society Utopian Studies Society Europe (Prato, Italy)
2019/04/12	Food Consumption and Production in an Imagined and Material South Land	'More Meals to Come', Alimentopia International Conference Centre for English Translation and Anglo-Portuguese Study (CETAPS), University of Porto (Porto, Portugal)
2018/09/15	Humanist Knowledge Practices in the Cartography of Terra Australis Incognita, part of a panel 'Craft Humanism in the Early Modern World’, convened by Dr. Maria Avxentevskaya, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin	Eighth Conference of the European Society for the History of Science European Society for the History of Science (London, United Kingdom)
2018/09/12	More in Terra Australis Incognita: Two Seventeenth-Century French Utopias	'Thomas More and History', Paris International Thomas More Seminar Amici Thomae Mori (Paris, France)
2018/05/26	At the Border of Knowledge in the Land of the Yued	Texts and Events across Borders', Sixth TEEME Conference Freie Universität Berlin (Berlin, Germany)
2017/04/28	Knowledge and Expectation in Early Modern Utopias Set in Terra Australis	38th Conference of the Portuguese Association for Anglo-American Studies Universidade do Minho (Braga, Portugal)
2016/07/09	Antipodean Desires and Fears in Early Modern Utopias Set in Terra Australis	Utopia 500 Utopian Studies Society Europe (Lisboa, Portugal)

Event organisation

	Event name Type of event (Role)	Institution / Organization
2023/11/01 - 2023/11/20	Lecture by Dr Jelena Bakic: "Emotions of Complaint in Renaissance Italy: Voices from the Margins" (2023/11/20 - 2023/11/20) Other (Other)	Centre for English Translation and Anglo-Portuguese Studies, Portugal
2023/11/01 - 2023/11/20	Workshop led by Dr. Natacha Klein Käfer: How to Write a Book Proposal (2023/11/20 - 2023/11/20) Workshop (Other)	Centre for English Translation and Anglo-Portuguese Studies, Portugal
2020/07/01 - 2022/03/09	'Vestiges of Dialogue', 2nd Practices of Privacy Symposium. Call for papers: https://teol.ku.dk/privacy/join-us/call-for-publications/practices-of-privacy-vestiges-of-dialogue/ (2021/03/07 - 2022/03/09) Conference (Co-organiser)	Centre for Privacy Studies, University of Copenhagen, Denmark
2016/06/15 - 2016/11/05	'Begin with an Object', Fifth TEEME Conference (2016/11/03 - 2016/11/05) Conference (Co-organiser)	University of Kent School of English, United Kingdom

Event participation

	Activity description Type of event	Event name Institution / Organization
2024/04/03 - 2024/04/03	Privacy and the novel: a history of utopian possibilities Symposium	Past Privacy Matters: How to Study It and Why? Universidade Federal de Santa Maria, Brazil

Committee member

	Activity description Role	Institution / Organization
2025/07/04 - Current	Committee member of the Utopian Studies Society Europe, responsible according to the constitution of the society for discussing and voting on matters relating to the good governance of the society such as selecting the annual conference organizer and promoting the interests of society members. Member	Utopian Studies Society Europe, Hungary

Conference scientific committee

	Conference name	Conference host
2024/11/12 - 2024/11/12	Playing with Utopia: Stretching the Paradigm through Time and Space	Casa dos Livros, CETAPS, University of Porto
2024/05/16 - 2024/05/17	Impressions of Privacy in Early Modern Paratexts	University of Verona

Course / Discipline taught

	Academic session	Degree Subject (Type)	Institution / Organization
2022/09/01 - 2025/12/19	Bibliografia e biblioteconomia digitale [Bibliography and Digital Library Science]	Languages and Literatures for Publishing and Digital Media (Bachelor)	Università degli Studi di Verona, Italy
2023/09/28 - 2024/02/12	Languages and Literatures for Publishing and Digital Media	Bibliografia e biblioteconomia digitale (in Italian) (Bachelor)	Università degli Studi di Verona, Italy

Distinctions

Award

2026	Seal of Excellence: Horizon Europe Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) Postdoctoral Fellowships 2025, for “HealingUtopia” (101285179), 16 February 2026. Horizon Europe Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions Postdoctoral Fellowships, Belgium
1995	HB Higgins Scholarship for the Study of Poetry The University of Melbourne, Australia
1993	Edith Derham Prize in Poetry The University of Melbourne, Australia

Other distinction

2025	Seal of Excellence: Horizon Europe Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) Postdoctoral Fellowships 2024, for “HEALINGUTOPIA” (101212267) Horizon Europe, Belgium
2021	Horizon Europe Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions Postdoctoral Fellowships Seal of Excellence for project "PRIVUTOPIA" (101068613), 5 May. Horizon Europe Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions Postdoctoral Fellowships, Belgium
2020	Horizon 2020 Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions Postdoctoral Fellowships 2020 Seal of Excellence for project "PRIVUTOPIA" (101033193), 26 March.