Goldsmiths - University of London

Dr Rick Crownshaw

BA (Hons) English and American Studies (Keele University, 1993); MA in Post-1945 American Literature and Literary Theory (University of Sussex, 1994); DPhil in American Literature (University of Sussex, 2000); Lecturer in American Literature, Keele University, 2000-2001; Lecturer in English, Manchester Metropolitan University, 2001-2005; appointed by Goldsmiths College 2005.

Teaching

At undergraduate level, I teach Inventing the Nation: American Literature in the Mid-Nineteenth Century, Introduction to American Literature and Culture, The American South, and Modern American Fiction. I offer the following MA courses: Twenty-first Century American Fiction, and American Literature and Culture: Critical and Theoretical Concepts.

Areas of supervision

I currently supervise theses on C20th American Literature. In addition, I am keen to supervise theses in the areas of Holocaust representation and memory, American cultural trauma and memory, and recent American fiction.

Research interests

Nineteenth-century American literature; post-1945 American fiction; American cultural memory and trauma; representations of the Holocaust, particularly American, German and British, in literature, photography, museums, memorials and monuments.

Selected publications

Forthcoming:

The Afterlife of Holocaust Memory in Literature and Culture (forthcoming with Palgrave Macmillan)

“The History of Memorials” in Bill Niven and Stefan Berger (eds), Writing History: Memory, Theory and Historical Writing (commissioned, Hodder Arnold, 2010)

with Jane Kilby and Antony Rowland (eds), The Future of Memory (forthcoming with Berghahn Books)

“Introduction: The Future of Memory”, in Richard Crownshaw, Jane Kilby, Antony Rowland (eds), The Future of  Memory (Oxford and New York, Berghahn, forthcoming).

“Libraries of Catastrophe in the work of W. G. Sebald”, in Sas Mays (ed.), Unpacking the Library (forthcoming with Rodopoi, 2009/10)

“Theoretical Anticipations:  Memory and Photography in W. G. Sebald’s Austerlitz”, in Jim Aulich, Lucy Burke, Simon Faulkner (eds), The Politics of Cultural Memory (Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Press, forthcoming 2009)

“Reading the Text as Witness in the Work of W. G. Sebald”, Journal of Romance Studies (Special Issue on “Cultural Memory”), (forthcoming 2009)

“The Limits of Transference: Theories of Memory and Photography in W. G. Sebald’s Austerlitz”, in Ann Rigney and Astrid Erll (eds), Mediation, Remediation, and the Dynamics of Cultural Memory (Berlin and New York: de Gruyter, 2009)

Published:

“Rereading Der Vorleser: Remembering the Perpetrator”, in Stuart Taberner and Karina Berger (eds), ‘Germans as Victims’ in The Literary Fiction of the Berlin Republic(Rochester, NY: Camden House, 2009)

“The German Countermonument: Conceptual Indeterminacies and the Retheorisation of the Arts of Vicarious Memory”, Forum for Modern Language Studies (Oxford University Press), 44.2 (April 2008), 212-227.

“Photography and Memory in Holocaust Museums”, Mortality (Routledge), special edition on Mourning, Memory, Memoria and Commemoration, vol. 12, issue 02 (April 2007), 176-192.

“German suffering or  ‘narrative fetishism?’:  W. G. Sebald’s Luftkrieg und Literatur”, in Lise Patt (ed.), Searching for Sebald (Los Angeles: Institute for Cultural Inquiry, 2007)

“Introduction,” with Selma Leydesdorff, Memory and Totalitarianism  (International Yearbook of Oral History and Life Stories. Vol. 1) (Transaction 2005)

“Reconsidering Postmemory:  Photography, the Archive and Post-Holocaust Memory in W.G. Sebald’s Austerlitz,” Mosaic (Special issue on the Photograph), vol. 37, no. 4, (December 2004), 215-236

“Performing Memory in Holocaust Museums,” Performance Research (Routledge), vol. 5, issue 3 (winter 2000), 18-27

"Cultural Heritage and Ethnic Identity: Belsen in the Museum," in Jane Stokes and Anna Reading (eds.), Developments in British Media (London: Macmillan, 1999), pp.295-303

Presentations and exhibitions

Recent conference organization: Transcultural Memory
A conference jointly organized by the Department of English and Comparative Literature, Goldsmiths, University of London, and The Centre for the Study of Cultural Memory, Institute of Germanic & Romance Studies, University of London. (This conference marks the inauguration of The Centre for the Study of Cultural Memory.) Call for papers deadline: 21st July 2009; Conference dates: 5-6th February 2010.
Conference website

Grants & awards

May - July 2004, Arts and Humanities Research Council Research Leave for the project “Reconsidering Postmemory: Post-Holocaust Remembrance in Theory, Literature, Art and Architecture”

Professional activities

• Member of the Academic Committee, Institute of Germanic and Romance Studies, University of London
• Member of editorial board, Memory and Narrative Series, Transaction Press (Rutgers University) Member of the editorial board for the journal
• Memory Studies (published by Sage)
• Member of the Peer Review Committee of the Institute of Germanic & Romance Studies Publications Series, University of London
• Lecturer and Convenor, MA in Cultural Memory, Institute of Germanic and Romance Studies, University of London
• Co-organiser, Cultural Memory Seminar Series (Institute of Germanic and Romance Studies and Raphael Samuel Centre, University of East London).