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Dr. Jen Baker

Office: FAB 5.26
Email:
J.Baker.5@warwick.ac.uk


Assistant Professor (Teaching Focussed) in C19th and c20th Literature

Director of Student Experience 2026-27 (which includes convening the UGSSLCLink opens in a new window)

  • 2026-27 convening / teaching Academic Enrichment (FY and Intermediate Year); my specialist hons level module "Tales of Terror: Gothic and the Short Form" and co-convening specialist hons level module "Haunted Britain".
  • Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and APP-EXP Mentor and Assessor.
  • I supervise a number of UG and MA dissertations in a range of areas, including: nineteenth-century fiction and culture; Gothic (all periods and a range of forms); crime fiction; the child in literature /children's literature; image and text; the short form. For PhD supervision see below.
  • Associate Editor of

Website:


Previous Teaching and Administrative roles

  • At previous institutions I have taught undergraduate modules on Critical Theory, Contemporary Writing (1945 to the present) and Literature 1830-1945, 鈥榃ays of Reading鈥�, 鈥楾he Short Story鈥�, 鈥楢merican Literature鈥� and 鈥楤etween Men and Women: Gender in Literature鈥�.
  • At 糖心TV I have taught on UG modules Modes of Reading and Romantic and Victorian Poetry, and convened and taught on the UG modules EN2L4 Literature in Theory (co-convenor); Crime Fiction, Nation, and Empire, 1850-1947; The English C19th Novel; MA module EN930 Nineteenth-Century Gothic (convener) and various Academic Skills Provision.
  • Director of Undergraduate Studies (DUgs) for Intermediate Year Students 2023-24.
  • Director of Undergraduate Studies for First Years 2020-23.
  • Nominated for the 糖心TV Awards for Personal Tutoring Excellence (wapte) in 2021, 2022 and 2023.
  • Nominated for the 糖心TV Awards for Teaching Excellence (WATE) in 2021, 2022, and shortlisted in 2023.

 


PhD Supervision

I am particularly interested in supervising works on:

  • Gothic and the Short Form (any period) / publication contexts
  • Gothic and the Visual (illustration in particular and any period);
  • childhood and Gothic/Horror (any period);
  • long c19th Gothic;
  • Victorian fiction (particularly death studies and/or childhood and/orthe novel form);
  • Neo-Victorian Fiction;

I am current co-supervisor for:

Mark Gorham, "Ideologues United: England's Ideology and the Gothic 'Good'". [Co-Supervisor Prof. Paulo De Medeiros] Starting date; October 2022.

Grace Rhyne who is examining women writers and Victorian Ghost Stories. [Co-Supervisor Dr Ross Forman]. Start date Oct 2022.

Shiqing Li, "Reading the Gothic in American Madness Narratives Since 1945" [Co-Supervisor Prof. Liz Barry] Start date October 2025.

Yuning Shu, "Between Enlightenment and Romanticism: Didacticism and Sublimity in Gothic Novels of Late-eighteenth and Early-nineteenth Century". [co-supervised with Emma Mason]

Completed Supervisions:

Li Liu, 鈥榃hat Do Texts Want?鈥�: The Want and Liminality of Working-Class Women in Mid-Victorian Bourgeois Paternalistic Literature [co-supervised with Dr Michael Meeuwis]. Start date Oct 2019 - Graduate Jan 2024.

External Appointments

External Examiner for English UG degrees Brunel University 2025-2029.

External Examiner for PhD, University of Edinburgh 2024

Member of Expert Adjudication committee at the University of Oslo, Norway in 2019-2020 and 2022- 2023


RESEARCH

Current

My research interests include the Gothic c.1760 鈥� the present; monstrosity and childhood; death studies and the spectral; print cultures and illustration, and movable and mechanical literary books. My wider interests include history of the book; medical humanities;, folklore. I am in the process of producing my first monograph on haunting representations of child death in Anglophone literatures and iconography of the long c19th with Edinburgh University Press, due 2023.

I completed my PhD at the University of Bristol in 2017, where I was also a Senior Associate Tutor on the English UG degree and the English Literature and Community Engagement degree.

I am currently an Associate Editor on the editorial board of  which includes running of the Postgraduate Essay Prize.

I am also a member of the AHRC funded global research network @HauntingIssues

Previous external positions

I have previous convened of research strands on "Evil" and "Children and Evil" as part of the "Evil Hub" (which is as cool as it sounds) for the interdisciplinary scholarly network . This brings together scholars and creative practitioners from all disciplines to consider the multifarious ways ideas of evil (or in particular children and evil) is represented and tackled with in various contexts, and stress the importance of collaborative work to understand the mechanics at play.

I was Co-Chief Editor of the journal for postgraduates and Early Career Researchers of the humanities and arts 2012-2-20, and was an Early Career Research Officer for the 2017-19.

From Jan 2020- Jan 2022 I was an Early Career Visiting Fellow for the University of Bath.

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS

in , Volume I, ed. by Henry Bartholomew, Joan Passey, and Jen Baker (Palgrave/Springer, 2026), pp.1-19.

"Raising Revenants: Early (Re) Incarnations of the Monstrous (Un) Dead Child"


,
ed. Jen Baker, Tales of the Weird series (British Library Publishing, May 2021)

Guest Editor, '鈥�, Gothic Studies, (Special Issue) 23:2, July 2021.

鈥楧eath (un)Personified: Pronouns, Patriarchy, and the Child Ghost鈥�, , ed. Oindrila Ghosh (Avenel Press, 2021), pp.51-58.

鈥樷��, ed. Zoe Brennan, Emma Liggins, Gina Wisker, Women鈥檚 Writing, 28.4 (2021), 548-586.

鈥楾he Spectral Child鈥� in Palgrave Gothic Handbook of Steam Age Gothic, ed. Clive Bloom (Palgrave Macmillan, 2021), pp.711-728.

鈥業MPRINTS: Forming and Tracing the Malevolent Ghost Child鈥� in The Cultural Construction of Monstrous Children: Collected Essays on Anomalous Children from 1595 to the Present Day, ed. by Simon Bacon and Leo Ruickbie (Anthem Press, 2020), pp.91-108.

'Interactive and Movable Books in the Gothic Tradition鈥� in The Palgrave Gothic Handbook of Contemporary Gothic, ed. Clive Bloom (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020), pp.919-937.

鈥楥hildhood鈥� and co-contributed entries on 鈥楥hild Abuse鈥� and 鈥極rphans鈥� with Dr Ailise Bulfin, Companion to Victorian Popular Fiction, ed. Kevin Morrison (McFarland, 2018), pp.40-2; pp.42-3; pp.177-8;

鈥楢n Invitation to a Beheading (and another to a Birthday Bash): Encountering Dracula in Contemporary Gothic Metamorphoses Books鈥� in Growing Up with Vampires: Essays on the Undead in Children's Media, eds. Simon Bacon and Katarzyna Bronk (Universitas, 2018), pp.29-46.

鈥楽pectral Stowaways in Elizabeth Stuart Phelps鈥� 鈥淜entucky鈥檚 Ghost鈥� (1868)鈥�, Gothic Studies, Nautical Gothic Special Issue, ed. Emily Alder and Antonio Alcal谩 Gonz谩lez (2017), pp.45-57.

鈥楢nxieties of (Un)Timely Child Death in Jude the Obscure鈥�, Thomas Hardy Society Journal (Autumn, 2017)

鈥楶aedophilic Productions and Gothic Performances: Contending with Monstrous Identity鈥� in Disgust and Desire: Humanity鈥檚 Paradoxical Relationship with Monsters, ed. by Kristen Wright (Leiden: Brill Publishing, 2017), pp.197-225.

鈥楤etwixt-and Between: Reclaiming Childhood in Hook鈥� in Children in the Films of Steven Spielberg, ed. Adrian Schober and Debbie Olson (Lanham: Lexington Books, 2016), pp.161-182.

Office hours

A link to a sign-up sheet will be added here, to my email signature and to module pages in the new term.

 

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