Dr Diletta De Cristofaro | Contemporary Culture Academic & Writer

Research:

I am an expert in the apocalyptic imagination, on which my main completed research project to date has focused. Today, we tend to think about the apocalypse as a catastrophe of overwhelmingly dystopian consequences but, traditionally, apocalyptic narratives concern the advent of a utopian world at the end of history. My research investigates what is at stake in this shift to a dystopian apocalyptic imagination by theorising the significance of time in the contemporary post-apocalyptic novel.

My book on this topic, *The Contemporary Post-Apocalyptic Novel: Critical Temporalities and the End Times*, is out with Bloomsbury. ***NOW AVAILABLE IN PAPERBACK** **TOO***
Praise for *The Contemporary Post-Apocalyptic Novel*: “a landmark study of 21st century fiction”, “a theoretical tour de force”, “a rigorously interdisciplinary work”, “demonstrates the social relevance of literature and literary analysis”.

Read the book’s introduction

Read about my other published projects

Edited Journal Special Issues:

“Thirty Years of Generation X” Thinking With multimedia cluster in ASAP/J (2020), co-curated with Andrew Tate and Mary McCampbell.
“The Literature of the Anthropocene”, a special issue of C21 Literature: Journal of 21st-Century Writing (2018), co-edited with Daniel Cordle.
“Station Eleven and Twenty-First-Century Writing”, a special issue of Open Library of Humanities (2018), co-edited with Daniel King.

Public Engagement Events Organised:

Featured public engagement event

“Forty Winks Café“, an online public event on sleep and contemporary culture, part of Being Human Festival 2020, the UK’s only national festival of the humanities. The event featured talks by myself, Professor Katy Shaw and Professor Jason Ellis, and was chaired by Claire Malcolm of New Writing North. Thanks to our attendees’ and speakers’ suggestions, we crowd-sourced a list of recommended books, films, and videos featuring sleep – you can download it here.

Other public engagement events

Contemporary Studies Network US Election Night: screening of You’ve Been Trumped Too & panel discussion. Broadway Cinema, Nottingham, November 2016.
2015-16: U.S. Studies Online #Bookhour, Twitter discussions between scholars and the public on selected novels.

Conferences and Workshops Organised:

Featured conference

In April 2021, with Andrew Tate (Lancaster University, UK) and Mary McCambell (Lee University, USA), I organised the first international conference devoted to Canadian writer and visual artist Douglas Coupland. Marking the 30th anniversary of the publication of Coupland’s first novel, *Generation X*, **‘Douglas Coupland and the Art of the “Extreme Present”‘** explored the richness of Coupland’s engagement with contemporary life across writings and visual culture. You can find out more, including recorded sessions, on the conference website. The conference attracted more than 300 registered attendees from across the world.

Other conferences and workshops

September 2021, BACLS-WHN 2021 Virtual Conference.
March 2021, “Reflections on Research: The Pandemic and Beyond“, BACLS Virtual Seminar.
June 2019-December 2020 “Canons and Values in Contemporary Literary Studies”, series of three one-day events at the University of Birmingham (virtual), University of Southampton and UCL.
BACLS Virtual Conference 2020, “Crisis in Contemporary Writing”.
“New Research on American Literature and Neoliberalism”, Edinburgh Napier University, 2019.
Contemporary Studies Network Workshop: “Contemporary Canonicity: Or, What Not to Read”, BACLS What Happens Now 2018, Loughborough University.
“500 Years of Utopia”, University of Nottingham, 2016.
2016-18, Contemporary Studies Network’s bi-monthly reading groups on new theoretical approaches to contemporary studies.
“Money Talks: Inequality and North-American Identity”, University of Nottingham, 2015.
“Forgotten Voices: Imperatives of Memory and the Vagaries of History in American Culture, from Settlement to 1900”, University of Nottingham, 2012.