Ryan Sweet

Academic profile

Dr Ryan Sweet

Lecturer in English and Creative Writing
School of Law, Humanities and Social Sciences (Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Business)

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The Global Goals

In 2015, UN member states agreed to 17 global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity for all. Ryan's work contributes towards the following SDG(s):

Goal 03: SDG 3 - Good Health and Well-beingGoal 04: SDG 4 - Quality EducationGoal 10: SDG 10 - Reduced Inequalities

About Ryan

Dr Ryan Sweet is a cultural and literary historian of disability with a passion for inclusive practice and widening participation in Higher Education. Ryan has published extensively on the ways in which prosthetic body parts were imagined and represented in Victorian literature and culture. He is also interested in tabletop gaming and human-animal relations in literature.
 
Ryan is currently beginning a new research project on disability in tabletop gaming, which will facilitate both the writing of a new book and the development of an inclusivity toolkit for board game designers and publishers.
 
Ryan's most notable publication to date is his Open Access monograph Prosthetic Body Parts in Nineteenth-Century Literature and Culture, which was published in the prestigious Palgrave Studies in Nineteenth-Century Writing and Culture book series in 2022.
 
Thanks to generous funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council, in collaboration with the serious games company Focus Games Ltd., Ryan developed the research from his book into the board game Legless in London, which won the international prize Best Board or Tabletop Game at the Games for Change Awards 2025.
 
Alongside his research and creative work, Ryan is an award-winning teacher in Higher Education, having won an Excellence in Learning and Teaching Award at Swansea in 2021 and Peer-Assisted Learning Scheme Academic Coordinator of the Year at Plymouth in 2026.
 
Ryan rejoined the University of Plymouth in April 2025 after five years of leading the Humanities Foundation Year at Swansea University, where he was Senior Lecturer in Humanities. He was previously the inaugural Programme Director of Plymouth's Foundation Years in English Literature, English Literature and Creative Writing, and History (2018-20).
 
Ryan has taught across the humanities at all HE levels since 2013. In addition to Plymouth and Swansea, he previously taught at the University of Exeter and Bath Spa University. He also held a Wellcome Trust Early Career Research Fellowship at the University of Leeds in 2017-2018.
 
A first-generation university student from rural working-class mid-Cornwall, Ryan completed his BA (Hons), MA, and PhD with Exeter from 2008 to 2016.

Supervised Research Degrees

2024–2025: James Cocks (part-time PhD in History, Swansea University), “Arts, Activism, and Accessibility: Disability Arts in Wales, 1980–Present.” (2nd supervisor)

2024–2025: Ella Harford (full-time PhD in History, Swansea University), “Women and Sexual Deviancy 1770-1830.” (2nd supervisor)

2019–2020: Kathryn Budden (part-time PhD in Creative Writing, University of Plymouth), “Atypical Rehabilitation Following Brain Damage after Stroke: Stories Told through Poetry and Personal Essay.” (3rd supervisor)

2019–2020 Connor Ruse (full-time ResM in History, University of Plymouth), “Disability in 1990s Disney Film.” (2nd supervisor)

Teaching

Victorian literature and culture, disability studies, study skills, interdisciplinary practice, Foundation Years

Contact Ryan

+44 1752 585096