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 am Professor of Nineteenth-Century English Literature. 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 Prof Angela Wright, I co-direct the Centre for the History of the Gothic.
I am Director of the PhD programme in English Literature.
- 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 Gothic Radicalism: Literature, Philosophy and Psychoanalysis in the Nineteenth Century (Macmillan 2000) explores 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.
Victorian Demons: Medicine, Masculinity and the Gothic at the fin-de-siècle (MUP 2004) explores representations of disease and degeneration in a variety of Gothic and medical contexts from the 1880s to the end of the century.
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, examines the various economic, cultural and political contexts of the ghost story.
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.
My Gothic Fiction and the Writing of Trauma, 1914-1934: The Ghosts of World War One (EUP 2022), examines how representations of the soldier-ghost were used to manage trauma both during and in the post-war era.
I am currently writing Dickens and the Gothic for CUP’s ‘Elements in the Gothic’ series and editing The Edinburgh Companion to the Victorian Ghost Story.
I edit, with Prof Ben Fisher (University of Mississippi), the award-winning ‘Gothic Literary Studies’ series for the University of Wales Press and the series ‘Gothic Authors: Critical revisions’ for the University of Wales Press, which specialises in 60,000-word polemical introductions to Gothic writers. I also edit the ‘Gothic Originals’ series with UWP with Prof Anthony Mandal (Cardiff University), which specializes in the publication of edited scholarly editions of Gothic texts. With Prof William Hughes (University Of Macau), I edit the series 'Edinburgh Companions to the Gothic' for Edinburgh University Press. With Anna Barton (University of Sheffield) I edit the series ‘Rethinking the Nineteenth Century’ for Manchester University Press. I am also on the Advisory Board of the ‘International Gothic’ series published by Manchester University Press.
- Publications
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Books
- Gothic Fiction and the Writing of Trauma, 1914-1934: The Ghosts of World War One. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
- Gothic Death 1740-1914: A Literary History. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
- Gothic Literature. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press..
- The Ghost Story 1840-1920. Manchester University Press.
- Victorian demons: Medicine, masculinity, and the Gothic at the fin-de-siècle. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
- Gothic Radicalism Literature, Philosophy and Psychoanalysis in the Nineteenth Century. Macmillan.
Edited books
- Locating Ann Radcliffe. London: Routledge.
- Suicide and the Gothic. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
- Haunted Houses: Two Novels by Charlotte Riddell. London: British Library.
- 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.
- EcoGothic. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
- The Encyclopedia of the Gothic. Blackwell-Wiley.
- The Victorian Gothic: An Edinburgh Companion. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
- Queering the Gothic. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
- The female gothic: New directions. Palgrave Macmillan UK.
- Teaching the Gothic. Palgrave Macmillan UK.
- Empire and the Gothic. Palgrave Macmillan UK.
- Fictions of Unease: The Gothic from Otranto to The X-Files. Bath: Sulis Press.
- Gothic Modernisms. Palgrave Macmillan UK.
- Bram Stoker. Palgrave Macmillan UK.
Journal articles
- Saul Bellow’s Gothic Ontology: The Victim and More Die of Heartbreak. Partial Answers: Journal of Literature and the History of Ideas.
- 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.
- Introduction: Literature and Money. Victorian Review, 31(2), 5-9.
- Dickens' Ghosts: Invisible Economies and Christmas. Victorian Review, 31(2), 36-55.
- Love, Freud, and the Female Gothic Bram Stoker’s the Jewel of Seven Stars. Gothic Studies, 6(1), 80-89.
- Defining the Relationships between Gothic and the Postcolonial. Gothic Studies, 5(2), 1-6.
- Demonising the Americans: Bram Stoker's Postcolonial Gothic. Gothic Studies, 5(2), 20-31.
- Rethinking the Gothic: What do we mean?. Gothic Studies, 4(1), 79-85.
- 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
- Gothic Imperialism at the Fin de siecle, CAMBRIDGE HISTORY OF THE GOTHIC, VOL 2: GOTHIC IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY (pp. 463-481).
- '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.
- Series editor's preface, SUICIDE AND THE GOTHIC (pp. XIV-XV).
- Introduction: the most Gothic of acts - suicide in generic context, SUICIDE AND THE GOTHIC (pp. 1-17).
- 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.
- Interventions Rethinking the nineteenth century Introduction, INTERVENTIONS: RETHINKING THE NINETEENTH CENTURY (pp. 1-12).
- Scientific Contexts In Smith A (Ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Frankenstein (pp. 69-83). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- THE CAMBRIDGE COMPANION TO FRANKENSTEIN Introduction, CAMBRIDGE COMPANION TO FRANKENSTEIN (pp. 1-+).
- ‘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.
- HAUNTINGS, ROUTLEDGE COMPANION TO GOTHIC (pp. 147-154).
- Postgraduate Developments, TEACHING THE GOTHIC (pp. 182-196).
- Introduction: Gothic Pedagogies, TEACHING THE GOTHIC (pp. 1-+).
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).
- Gothic Fiction and the Writing of Trauma, 1914-1934: The Ghosts of World War One. Edinburgh: Edinburgh 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 teach on a number of Romantic and Victorian modules and on an elective module on the late nineteenth-century Gothic. I teach an MA 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.