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
- Introduction. Manchester University Press.
- Victorian demons: Medicine, masculinity, and the Gothic at the fin-de-siècle.
- Gothic Death 1740-1914: A Literary History. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
- EcoGothic. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
- Gothic Literature. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press..
- The Ghost Story 1840-1920. Manchester University Press.
- The Female Gothic. Palgrave Macmillan.
- Queering the Gothic. Manchester University Press.
Edited books
- Suicide and the Gothic. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
- Interventions: Rethinking the Nineteenth Century. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
- Lost in a Pyramid & Other Classic Mummy Stories. London: British Library.
- The Cambridge Companion to Frankenstein. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- The Encyclopedia of the Gothic. Blackwell-Wiley.
- The Victorian Gothic: An Edinburgh Companion. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
- 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.
- ‘Frankenstein’s Melancholy’. English Language Notes, 1(48), 79-88.
- Revisiting the Gothic and Theory: An Introduction. Gothic Studies, 1(11), 1-8.
- Kipling’s Gothic and Postcolonial Laughter. Gothic Studies, 1(11), 58-69.
- Bram Stoker'sthe mystery of the sea:Ireland and the Spanish‐Cuban‐American war. Irish Studies Review, 6(2), 131-138.
Chapters
- 'The body of a self-destroyer': suicide and the self in the fin de siecle Gothic In Hughes W & Smith A (Ed.), Suicide and the Gothic (pp. 66-80). Manchester: Manchester University Press.
- Introduction, Interventions
- Reading the Gothic and Gothic readers In Barton A & Smith A (Ed.), Interventions: Rethinking the Nineteenth Century (pp. 72-88). Manchester: Manchester University Press.
- Gothic Aesthetics In Guy J (Ed.), The Edinburgh Companion to Fin de Siècle Literature, Culture and the Arts Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
- Scientific Contexts In Smith A (Ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Frankenstein (pp. 69-83). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- ‘Gothic Science’, Romantic Gothic (pp. 306-321). Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
- ‘Medicine’, The Fin-de-Siècle World (pp. 487-500). London: Routledge.
- Gothic and the Victorian fin de siècle, 1880-1900., Terror and Wonder: The Gothic Imagination (pp. 124-149). London: British Library.
- The Victorian Gothic: An Edinburgh companion (pp. 1-264).
- Introduction: Locating the Victorian Gothic (pp. 1-14).
- Victorian Gothic death, The Victorian Gothic: An Edinburgh Companion (pp. 156-169).
- Henry James's Ghosts, A Companion to American Gothic (pp. 189-200). Oxford: Blackwell.
- Locating the self in the post-apocalypse: the American
Gothic journeys of Jack Kerouac, Cormac McCarthy and
Jim Crace In Smith A & Hughes W (Ed.), EcoGothic (pp. 134-146). Manchester University Press
- Introduction: defining the ecoGothic In Smith A & Hughes W (Ed.), EcoGothic (pp. 1-14). Manchester University Press
- Introduction In Hughes W, Punter D & Smith A (Ed.), The Encyclopedia of the Gothic (pp. xxxiii-xxxviii). Blackwell-Wiley
- Introduction: Locating the Victorian Gothic In Smith A & Hughes W (Ed.), The Victorian Gothic: an Edinburgh Companion (pp. 1-14). Edinburgh University Press
- Victorian Gothic Death In Smith A & Hughes W (Ed.), The Victorian Gothic: an Edinburgh Companion (pp. 156-170). Edinburgh University Press
- The Limits of Neo-Victorian History: Elizabeth Kostova’s The Historian
and The Swan Thieves. In Kohlke M-L & Gutleben C (Ed.), Neo-Victorian Gothic: Horror, Violence and Degeneration in the Re-Imagined Nineteenth Century (pp. 51-73). Rodopi
- Introduction: Queering the Gothic In Hughes W & Smith A (Ed.), Queering the Gothic (pp. 1-10). Manchester University Press
- Death, Art, and Bodies: Queering the Gothic in Will Self’s Dorian In Hughes W & Smith A (Ed.), Queering the Gothic (pp. 177-192). Manchester University Press
- Introduction: Defining the Female Gothic In Wallace D & Smith A (Ed.), The Female Gothic: New Directions (pp. 1-12). Palgrave Macmillan
- Children of the Night: Shirley Jackson’s Domestic Female Gothic In Wallace D & Smith A (Ed.), The Female Gothic: New Directions (pp. 152-165). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Conference proceedings papers
Dictionary/encyclopaedia entries
- James, M.R. (Montague Rhodes). In The Encyclopedia of the Gothic Blackwell-Wiley.
- Modernism. In The Encyclopedia of the Gothic Blackwell-Wiley.
- Degeneration. In The Encyclopedia of the Gothic Blackwell-Wiley.
- Collins (William) Wilkie. In The Handbook of the Gothic Palgrave Macmillan.
Other
- Special issue of 'Gothic Studies' on 'Theorising the Gothic'. Gothic Studies, 11(1).
- Introduction. Manchester University Press.
- 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.