Richard Allen has contributed to widely to teaching in Literature and to interdisciplinary courses. His interests are in Romanticism, literature of the colonial period and literary relations between Britain and India. His television essay Persisting Dreams (1996) on the influence of Byron on Verdi and Delacroix was produced in association with the course Approaching Literature; his essay ‘Mary Shelley as editor of the poems of Percy Shelley’ appeared in the Women in Humanities Research Group collection, Women, Scholarship and Criticism (Manchester University Press, 2000). ‘British Post-colonialism: 1956 and all that’ appeared in Interrogating Post-colonialism: Theory, Text and Context (Indian Insitute for Advanced Study, 1996) edited by Harish Trivedi and Meenakshee Mukherjee. With Professor Trivedi Richard Allen has also written the postgraduate course text book Literature and Nation: Britain and India 1800-1990 (Routledge, 2000). Richard Allen has lectured at a number of Indian universities and been Visiting Professor in the Departments of English at the University of Mumbai and the Delhi University. In 2004 he co-taught an Mphil class on ‘Representations of India in British Writings’ at Delhi University and in 2005 acted as a consultant to the School of Open Learning there.
Since 1995 Richard Allen has been involved in Faculty and University management and policy, first as Sub-Dean for Curriculum Development, and then as Dean and Director of Studies for the Faculty of Arts (until October 2007). He has taken a particular interest in learning and teaching policy; he has been Chair of The Open University Learning and Teaching Strategy Group, and is Deputy Chair of the University Learning and Teaching Board. He has an interest also in audit issues and was a member of the Steering Group for the 2004 Quality Assurance Agency Institutional Audit which resulted in a verdict of ‘broad confidence’ in the University’s work. With the PVC, Curriculum and Awards, he led the work which resulted in the led to The Open University gaining international accreditation for its teaching and awards from the US Middle States Commission for Higher Education.
As Sub Dean, Richard Allen led the Faculty’s successful campaign which resulted in the introduction of named subject degrees in 2000; as Dean he has chaired the Humanities Degree Board throughout its life to date. As Dean, he has - among other things - fostered the introduction of online courses and the teaching of Creative Writing. A particularly important initiative begun by Richard Allen has been the creation of The Ferguson Centre for African and Asian Studies; this is at once a research centre and a centre designed to lead the extension of the cultural change in the Faculty’s teaching (see The Ferguson Centre’s website).
