Steven Barfield is Senior Lecturer in English Literature at the University of Westminster . His main research interests on which he has published are: Samuel Beckett, contemporary British theatre and psychoanlytic literary theory. He has an article on J.K. Rowling in Linda Van Troost, (ed.) Topic: The Washington and Jefferson College Review 54 (2004) and a forthcoming long chapter in Cynthia J. Hallett, (ed.) Harry Potter Academically Speaking: A Collection of Critical & Pedagogical Essays. (Edwin Mellen Press, 2005). He is also current working on a co-edited collection on J.K. Rowling's work. He is Series Editor (with Philip Tew) of the forthcoming series: Continuum Handbooks for Literature and Culture and is co-editing a special issue of the journal Anglistic und Englischunterricht on Teaching Contemporary British Fiction, based on a conference he co-convened in 2004. He is an elected member of the College of Teachers, a member of the Institute of Learning and Teaching in Higher Education as well as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. He is on the editorial committee of the electronic journal Literary London and is (elected) Deputy Director of the UK Network for Modern Fiction Studies http://www.uk-fiction-network.org. His university web page is http://wwwedit.wmin.ac.uk/sshl/new/Englit/barfield.htm.