Joel Evans

Contact

• workRoom A48 Trent
  University Park
  Nottingham
  NG7 2RD
  UK
• Joel.Evans@nottingham.ac.uk

Biography

I am an Assistant Professor in Literature and have been at Nottinhgam since 2018. Before this, I taught literature at the University of Lancaster. I have a PhD in English (University of Lancaster) an MA in Literary and Cultural Studies (University of Lancaster) and a BA (hons) in English Literature (University of Central Lancashire).

I publish mainly in the field of contemporary literary studies, but have also published work in critical and media theory, film studies, and global literary studies. My first monograph was published in 2019 by Cambridge University Press, and is entitled Conceptualising the Global in the Wake of the Postmodern: Literature, Culture, Theory. I have published articles in a range of journals including Textual Practice, Novel: a Forum on Fiction, Critical Quarterly, and Angelaki: Journal of the Theoretical Humanities.

I am currently working on a book-length project entitled Visions of the Collective: Democracy and Fiction in the 21st Century. The book explores a resurgence of figurations of the collective form in contemporary culture, whilst interrogating how these figurations bear on the question of democracy. For the duration of 2026, I will be taking up a Leverhulme Research Fellowship in order to complete this book.

Expertise Summary

My research interests include modern and contemporary literature; modern and contemporary cinema; global/world literatures; critical theory and criticism; and contemporary theories and philosophies of media. I would be very happy to supervise PhD students in any of these areas.

Teaching Summary

At Undergraduate level, I teach on the following modules: Studying Literature; Modern and Contemporary Literature; Contemporary British Fiction; and One and Unequal: World Literature and English. At… read more

Recent Publications

• JOEL EVANS, 2026. The Origins of Printed Man: Ian Watt, Marshall McLuhan and the Rise of the Literacy Thesis Critical Quarterly.
• JOEL EVANS, 2025. Review of Arthur Bradley's 'Staging Sovereignty: Theory, Theatre, Thaumaturgy' Textual Practice.
• JOEL EVANS, 2024. Deep Time in Early J. G. Ballard, or the New Man in the Mesh of Life. In: DECLAN LLOYD and WARREN MORTIMER, eds., Digressions in Deep Time: Ecocritical Approaches to Literature and the Arts Lexington.
• JOEL EVANS, 2023. Review of Stuart Jeffries' 'Everything, all the Time, Everywhere' American Literary History. 35(2), 1090-1092

• View all publications

At Undergraduate level, I teach on the following modules: Studying Literature; Modern and Contemporary Literature; Contemporary British Fiction; and One and Unequal: World Literature and English. At MA level I teach on these modules: Literature in Britain Since 1950; Place, Region and Empire; World Utopia in the Early Twentieth Century; and World Literatures: From Theory to Text. I am the convenor One and Unequal and Place, Region, Empire.

• JOEL EVANS, 2026. The Origins of Printed Man: Ian Watt, Marshall McLuhan and the Rise of the Literacy Thesis Critical Quarterly.
• JOEL EVANS, 2025. Review of Arthur Bradley's 'Staging Sovereignty: Theory, Theatre, Thaumaturgy' Textual Practice.
• JOEL EVANS, 2024. Deep Time in Early J. G. Ballard, or the New Man in the Mesh of Life. In: DECLAN LLOYD and WARREN MORTIMER, eds., Digressions in Deep Time: Ecocritical Approaches to Literature and the Arts Lexington.
• JOEL EVANS, 2023. Review of Stuart Jeffries' 'Everything, all the Time, Everywhere' American Literary History. 35(2), 1090-1092
• JOEL EVANS, ed., 2022. Globalisation and Literary Studies Cambridge University Press.
• JOEL EVANS, 2022. The End of History: Literature, Eschatology and its Legacies. In: JOEL EVANS, ed., Globalisation and Literary Studies Cambridge University Press.
• 2022. Introduction: Globalization and Literary Studies. In: JOEL EVANS, ed., Globalization and Literary Studies Cambridge University Press.
• JOEL EVANS, 2022. Review of Timothy Bewes' 'Free Indirect: The Novel in a Postfictional Age' Canadian Review of Comparative Literature. 49(4), 465-467
• JOEL EVANS, 2021. Literature, Democracy and the Object: From Lukacs to Ranciere and Back Angelaki: Journal of the Theoretical Humanities. 26(5),
• JOEL EVANS, 2020. The Mob: On J. G. Ballard's Turn to the Collective Novel: A Forum on Fiction. 53(3),
• JOEL EVANS, 2020. Globalisation and the Corona Virus (blog-article) Fifteeneightyfour: Academic Perspectives from Cambridge University Press. Available at: <http://www.cambridgeblog.org/2020/05/globalisation-and-the-corona-virus/>
• JOEL EVANS, 2019. Conceptualising the Global in the Wake of the Postmodern: Literature, Culture, Theory Cambridge University Press.
• JOEL EVANS, 2019. Literature, Totality and the Global (blog-article) Fifteeneightyfour: Academic Perspectives from Cambridge University Press. Available at: <http://www.cambridgeblog.org/2019/04/literature-totality-and-the-global/>
• JOEL EVANS, 2016. Ali Smith's Necessary-Contingent, or Navigating the Global Textual Practice. 32(4),
• JOEL EVANS, 2014. Figuring the Global: On Charlie Kaufman's Synecdoche, New York New Review of Film and Television Studies. 12(4),