Professor Andrew Smith
School of English
Professor of Nineteenth Century English Literature

+44 114 222 0217
Full contact details
School of English
Jessop West
1 Upper Hanover Street
Sheffield
S3 7RA
- Profile
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I was promoted to Professor of Nineteenth Century English Literature at the University of Sheffield in 2017, having worked at the University since 2012. My research interests are in Gothic literature, literature and science, nineteenth century literature, and critical theory. The Gothic of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries was the topic of both my MA thesis and PhD at the University of Southampton.
I have published widely on the Gothic and have given conference papers on related topics in the UK and in the USA, Canada, Spain, France, Belgium, Sweden, Germany and the Netherlands. I was elected Joint President of the International Gothic Association in 2009 and re-elected in 2011.
I was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts in 2007 and elected a Fellow of the English Association in 2008. In 2015 I was elected a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.
With Angela Wright, I co-direct the Centre for the History of the Gothic.
Before being appointed at Sheffield I worked at the University of Glamorgan (1995-2012), where I was professor of English and co-director of RCLAS (Research Centre for Literature, Arts and Science) and prior to that I lectured at Sheffield Hallam University (1993-1995).
I am currently the Disability Liaison Officer for the School of English.
- Research interests
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My principal area of research is focused on the Gothic of the late eighteenth century to the beginning of the twentieth century. My first monograph, Gothic Radicalism: Literature, Philosophy and Psychoanalysis in the Nineteenth Century (Macmillan 2000) explored how a Gothic tradition during this period critically reconstructed an Idealist tradition from Burke to Freud.
This demonstrated the intellectually radical critical potential of the Gothic. My second research monograph, Victorian Demons: Medicine, Masculinity and the Gothic at the fin-de-siècle (MUP 2004) centred on the representation of disease and degeneration from the 1880s to the end of the century.
The book consists of a series of related case histories, including chapters on Joseph Merrick (aka ‘The Elephant Man’), the ‘Jack the Ripper’ Whitechapel Murders, and medical textbooks on syphilis. The book examines how medicine at the time became increasingly implicated within a language of degeneracy that it was ostensibly meant to diagnostically police.
My third research monograph, The ghost story 1840-1920: a cultural history (MUP 2010), which was nominated for the inaugural Allan Lloyd Smith prize for the best book of Gothic scholarship published between 2010-2011, examined the various economic, cultural and political contexts of the ghost story.
My most recent monograph, Gothic death 1740-1914: a literary history (MUP 2016), explores literary representations of death and dying from the Graveyard poetry of the 1740s to the later work of Bram Stoker.
I am currently writing a monograph on the Gothic and the First World War for Edinburgh University Press, titled Gothic Fiction and the Writing of Trauma, 1914-1934: The Ghosts of World War One.
I edit, with Prof Ben Fisher (University of Mississippi), the award-winning ‘Gothic Literary Studies’ series for the University of Wales Press which has nearly thirty volumes either in print, in press, or under contract. I also edit (with Ben Fisher) the series ‘Gothic Authors: Critical revisions’ for the University of Wales Press, which specialises in 50,000-word polemical introductions to Gothic writers. I also edit with Prof William Hughes (Bath Spa University) the series 'Edinburgh Companions to the Gothic' for Edinburgh University Press.
The first two volumes have been published. With Anna Barton (University of Sheffield) I edit the series ‘Rethinking the Nineteenth Century’ for Manchester University Press. I am on the Advisory Board of the ‘International Gothic’ series published by Manchester University Press.
Click here for a short clip in which I discuss some of my research interests.
- Publications
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Books
- The Ghost Story 1840-1920. Manchester University Press.
Edited books
- The female gothic: New directions. Palgrave Macmillan UK.
Journal articles
- Radcliffe's Aesthetics: Or, The Problem With Burke And Lewis. Women's Writing, 22(3), 317-330. View this article in WRRO
- Introduction: Locating Radcliffe. Women's Writing, 22(3), 281-286.
- Introduction: Literature and Money. Victorian Review, 31(2), 5-9.
- Dickens' Ghosts: Invisible Economies and Christmas. Victorian Review, 31(2), 36-55.
- Pathologising the Gothic: The Elephant Man, the Neurotic and the Doctor. Gothic Studies, 2(3), 292-304.
- Bram Stoker'sthe mystery of the sea:Ireland and the Spanish‐Cuban‐American war. Irish Studies Review, 6(2), 131-138.
Chapters
- Introduction, Interventions
Conference proceedings papers
Dictionary/encyclopaedia entries
Other
- Research group
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I welcome PhD applications on any area of Gothic studies and the literature of the long nineteenth century.
- Teaching activities
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I am currently the convener of the final year module, 'Romantic and Victorian Prose', I also teach on 'Romantic and Victorian Poetry' and deliver an elective on the fin de siècle Gothic. At MA level, I teach on a number of modules, as well as delivering a module on ‘Murderers and Degenerates at the fin de siècle’.
- Professional activities
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Past President of the international Gothic Association and Executive Committee member of the IGA.
AHRC Peer Review College member 2010-2017.
I am a member of the editorial board for the following journals: Gothic Studies, The Journal of Literature and Science, Miranda: a multi-disciplinary peer-reviewed Journal on the English-Speaking World and Dissections.
I am an academic reader for: Palgrave, Manchester University Press, Edinburgh University Press, Routledge, SUNY, University of Wales Press, Liverpool University Press, Broadview Press, Peter Lang, Zittaw Press (book blurb), Cambridge Scholars Press (book blurb).
I have provided academic peer-review for: Gothic Studies, PMLA, Victorian Review, Nineteenth Century Studies, Nineteenth-Century Contexts, Modern Languages Review, Studies in The Novel, Frontiers, Mosaic, Anarchist Studies, Dissections, Interventions: International Journal of Postcolonial Studies, Literature Compass, Journal of Adaptation in Film and Performance and Diegesis.
I have acted as an external assessor for a number of internal Readership, Associate Professorship and full Professorship applications at a number of UK and North American institutions.
I was external examiner for MA Popular Cultures, University of Hull 2010-2012 and external examiner for English at Liverpool Hope University College 1999-2003.
I have examined PhD theses at the universities of Aberystwyth, Bristol, Cardiff, Kent, Swansea, Stirling, Lancaster, Hull, Limerick (Mary Immaculate), Loughborough, Melbourne, Queen's University Belfast, Sheffield Hallam, Western Australia and the West of England.