Read about

Dr Diletta

De Cristofaro

I am an Assistant Professor (Senior Lecturer) in English Literature at Northumbria University in the UK and a culture writer. I research and write about contemporary literature and culture. I am particularly interested in narratives of crises and in what these narratives tell us about our society, our sense of self, and of time. I am also a public speaker and contribute to literary and science festivals. 

I am an expert in the apocalyptic imagination, especially narratives about the climate crisis. My book on the topic, The Contemporary Post-Apocalyptic Novel: Critical Temporalities and the End Times, is out with Bloomsbury.

I’m now working on my second single-authored book, which explores the cultural politics of the sleep crisis, namely, today’s presumed widespread sleep deprivation. This award-winning project has attracted funding from the Wellcome Trust and the European Commission. As part of this project, I have also edited the first collection of essays on critical sleep studies for The MIT Press, Sleep and Its Meanings: Sociocultural Investigations from Critical Sleep Studies, out in May 2026.

My essays and criticism have appeared in media outlets like The Week, New Humanist, Salon, RTÉ and in academic publications like Textual Practice, Parallax, Critique, and boundary 2 online. Between 2023 and 2025 I was Co-Chair, with Phil Leonard, of the British Association for Contemporary Literary Studies (BACLS). In 2023, I was shortlisted as a BBC New Generation Thinker.

I am available to write and speak about my areas of expertise.