Dr Sam Hirst

School of English

Teaching Associate

sam.hirst@sheffield.ac.uk

Full contact details

Dr Sam Hirst
School of English
Jessop West
1 Upper Hanover Street
Sheffield
S3 7RA
Profile

I studied Russian and Spanish at undergrad, specialising in Russian Romantic literature. After living in Spain, Russia and South Africa for some years, I returned to the UK to undertake a Masters Course in 'The Gothic Imagination' at Stirling University. I then went on to do a PhD in 'The Theology of the Early British Gothic, 174-1833' at Manchester Metropolitan University. I have also completed teaching qualifications - the PGCLTHE at ManMet and the PGDAP at Liverpool University.

After working for a number of years as an Associate Lecturer at Manchester Metropolitan, I got a position as Teaching Associate in EAP at Leeds University before beginning a full time position as the Alan Price Memorial Post-Doctoral Teaching Fellow at Liverpool University. I went on to work as a Lecturer in English Literature at Liverpool and a lecturer in 19th century literature at Oxford Brookes, before taking up a position as Research Associate at Nottingham, collaborating with Newstead Abbey on celebrations and displays marking the bicentenary of Byron's death. I received an AHRC IAA grant as a post-doctoral knowledge exchange fellow to continue and widen my work on literary tourism, Byron, and Newstead. I am currently employed part-time on a research project at Newstead Abbey, transcribing, digitizing and creating a display based around musician William Linley's diary 'Summer Rambles of 1825'.

I have published numerous articles on 18th and 20th century Gothic and Gothic romance. In 2023, I published my first monograph Theology in the Early British and Irish Gothic, 1764-1834 with Anthem Press. It was shortlisted for the Alan Lloyd Smith prize. I have also published short fiction in a range of queer Gothic magazines and anthologies.

I run Romancing the Gothic - a free educational online programme which offers free lectures on subjects more (or less) related to horror and the Gothic. I also run yearly conferences. 2025 marks the 5th annual conference which will celebrate the 100th anniversary of M R James' A Warning to the Curious and other stories. You can find more information at www.romancingthegothic.com

I frequently collaborate with external partners. These have included:

  • Nottingham City Libraries, where I collaborated on a holographic Byron display and a series of lectures
  • The Brontë Parsonage, where I ran a 'Gothic Brontës' course and will run a 'Brontës and Byron' course this year
  • Science VR, where I collaborated on the creation of a digital world based on the Villa Diodati and the work of Romantic Poets
  • The Regency Academe, where I design and run courses on 'Living Religion in the Georgian and Regency Periods', 'Literary Tourism' and 'Gothic Publishing'
  • Newstead Abbey

I have also written for non-academic outlets including DK Publishing, History Today, Tor.com and The Conversation.

Research interests

My research focuses primarily on intersections of literary and theology in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. I also work on Gothic romance, literary tourism, women writers of the Romantic period, and the wider Gothic and horror.

Publications

Books

Journal articles

Chapters