Dr Joseph Crawford

My work to date has focussed primarily on the literature of the eighteenth century and Romantic periods, and on the history of Gothic and romance media from their earliest origins to the present day. I have also carried out research into the history of popular fiction, literature and medicine, comics studies, and the literary history of the south-west of England. My first book, Raising Milton's Ghost, was published in 2011; my second, Gothic Fiction and the Invention of Terrorism, came out in 2013. My third book, The Twilight of the Gothic, was published in 2014 by University of Wales Press as part of their Gothic Literary Studies series. My fourth book, Inspiration and Insanity in British Poetry 1825-55, was published by Palgrave in 2019. My fifth book, Unruly Behaviour, deals with the impact of third-wave feminism on the American comics industry: it is under contract with Rutgers University press, for publication in 2025 as part of their Comics Studies series. I am presently researching the literary and medical cultures of the post-Romantic period.

My teaching at Exeter is primarily on poetry, and the literature of the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries. I also teach an optional third-year module on the history of romance fiction.

My office is Queens 239. Office hours can be booked using my bookings page here. 

Biography:

I took my BA in English Literature at Cambridge, and my Masters and DPhil at Oxford. Before coming to Exeter, I held a research fellowship at Cambridge University. I have published widely on Romantic literature, Gothic fiction, medical humanities, romance media, and the history of popular culture. 

Research supervision:

I am happy to supervise students who wish to work on literary-historical topics relating to British Romanticism, Gothic fiction, and/or the literature of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. I also have an interest in contemporary popular fiction, especially in relation to the Gothic and romance genres. I have particular interests in topics relating to religion, nationalism, radical politics, the French Revolution, the occult, the supernatural, madness, altered states of consciousness, the history of popular fiction, and the aesthetics of the sublime.