Ian Watt (9 March 1917 – 13 December 1999) was a literary critic, literary historian and professor of English at Stanford University. His The Rise of the Novel: Studies in Defoe, Richardson and Fielding (1957) is an important work in the history of the genre. Published in 1957, The Rise of the Novel is considered by many contemporary literary scholars as the seminal work on the origins of the novel, and an important study of literary realism. The book traces the rise of the modern novel to philosophical, economic and social trends and conditions that become prominent in the early 18th century.
Born 9 March 1917, in Windermere, Westmorland in England, Watt was educated at the Dover County School for Boys and at St John's College, Cambridge, where he earned first-class honours in English.
Watt joined the British Army at the age of 22 and served with distinction in the Second World War as an infantry lieutenant from 1939 to 1946. He was wounded in the Battle of Singapore in February 1942 and listed as 'missing, presumed killed in action'.
Dr Ian James Watt AO, is a retired Australian public servant, best known for his time as Secretary of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet between September 2011 and November 2014.
Watt was born in Victoria and raised in Reservoir in Melbourne's northern suburbs. Watt was educated at La Trobe University and joined the Australian Public Service in 1971 in the Victorian Division of the Post Master General's Department. He completed his honours degree at the University of Melbourne before commencing a cadetship with the The Treasury in 1973. Watt completed his master's degree and PhD at La Trobe University before returning to The Treasury in 1985.
He served as Minister (Economic) at the Embassy of Australia in Washington between 1991 and 1994. On his return to Australia, Watt was appointed as First Assistant Secretary of Economic Division, Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, between March 1994 and November 1996; and was Deputy Secretary of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet (DPM&C) and Executive Coordinator of the Economic, Industry and Resources Policy Group until March 2001. During his time at DPM&C, Watt completed the Advanced Management Program at the Harvard Business School.
Ian Watt (1917–1999), was an English-born literary critic.
Ian Watt may refer to:
The watt (symbol: W) is a derived unit of power in the International System of Units (SI), named after the Scottish engineer James Watt (1736–1819). The unit is defined as joule per second and can be used to express the rate of energy conversion or transfer with respect to time. It has dimensions of L2MT−3.
When an object's velocity is held constant at one meter per second against constant opposing force of one newton the rate at which work is done is 1 watt.
In terms of electromagnetism, one watt is the rate at which work is done when one ampere (A) of current flows through an electrical potential difference of one volt (V).
Two additional unit conversions for watt can be found using the above equation and Ohm's Law.
Where ohm () is the SI derived unit of electrical resistance.
Watt was Samuel Beckett's second published novel in English, largely written on the run in the south of France during the Second World War and published by Maurice Girodias's Olympia Press in 1953 (an extract had been published in the Dublin literary review, Envoy, in 1950). A French translation followed in 1968.
Narrated in four parts, it describes Watt's journey to, and within, Mr Knott's house; where he becomes the reclusive owner's manservant, replacing Arsene, who delivers a long valedictory monologue at the end of section one. In section two Watt struggles to make sense of life at Mr Knott's house, experiencing deep anxiety at the visit of the piano tuning Galls, father and son, and a mysteriously language-resistant pot, among other incidents. In section three, which has a narrator called Sam, Watt is in confinement, his language garbled almost beyond recognition, while the narrative veers off on fantastical tangents such as the story of Ernest Louit's account to a committee of Beckett's old university, Trinity College, Dublin of a research trip in the West of Ireland. The shorter fourth section shows Watt arriving at the railway station from which, in the novel's skewed chronology, he sets out on a journey to the institution he has already reached in section three.
The surname Watt may refer to: