Staff

Andrew Smith was promoted to Professor of Nineteenth Century English Literature at the University of Sheffield in 2017, having worked at the University since 2012. His 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 his MA thesis and PhD at the University of Southampton.

Andrew has 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. He was elected Joint President of the International Gothic Association in 2009 and re-elected in 2011.

Andrew was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts in 2007 and elected a Fellow of the English Association in 2008. In 2015 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.

Andrew worked with Professor Ben Fisher (University of Mississippi) as editor of 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. He also edited (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; he also edited the series ‘Edinburgh Companions to the Gothic’ for Edinburgh University Press with Professor William Hughes; and the series ‘Rethinking the Nineteenth Century’ for Manchester University Press with Professor Anna Barton.

Andrew Smith is a member of the Advisory Board of the ‘International Gothic’ series published by Manchester University Press.

For more on Andrew Smith’s research and teaching activities, see Andrew's University of Sheffield staff page.

Maisha Wester was visiting staff on a Global Professorship award, sponsored by the British Academy. She was also a 2017-2018 Fulbright scholar hosted at the University of Sheffield. Her home institution is Indiana University where she is an Associate Professor in American Studies. Her research focuses on racial representations in Gothic literature and Horror film, Black Diasporic Gothic literature and Horror Film, and sociopolitical appropriations of Gothic tropes in racial discourses. She teaches Horror film studies, American and British Gothic literature, and Black Feminist Literature.

Maisha is author of African American Gothic: Screams from Shadowed Places (Palgrave), which was shortlisted for the Allan Lloyd Smith memorial prize for the best book published upon the Gothic 2013. She is co-editor of the collection Twenty-First Century Gothic with Xavier Aldana Reyes. She has also authored numerous essays, including “Gothic In and As Race Theory” (in The Gothic and Theory: An Edinburgh Companion), “Nineteenth-Century British and American Gothic and the History of Slavery” (in The Cambridge History of the Gothic: Volume 2, Gothic in the Nineteenth Century), “The Abject Oath: British Psychosis and the Mythos of Mau Mau Oathing” (in Ofo: Journal of Transatlantic Studies) and “Torture Porn and Uneasy Feminisms: Re-thinking (Wo)men in Eli Roth’s Hostel Films” (in Quarterly Review of Film).

Maisha has also given a number of interviews, including:

• a discussion of Southern Folk Tales as Gothic Horror for the documentary Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched. (Severin Films, March 2021);

• voice over and footage for the episode “A Comedy of Errors”, of A Crime to Remember. (Investigation Discovery Channel, Dec. 8, 2015);

• and a discussion, “Bloodier than Tarantino: The Real Slave Narrative and Its Complexities” on the radio show Interchange. (WFHB, Feb. 17, 2015)

• Maisha is the US Book Review Editor for the international journal Gothic Studies.

For more on Maisha Wester’s research and teaching activities, see Maisha's University of Sheffield staff page.