I am a university lecturer in English-language literature and culture, specialising in the history and development of Gothic, Horror and Science Fiction, and recently also Noir, from about 1750-present. In my research I explore social and ethical questions relating to these genres.

More information about Evert Jan van Leeuwen

Fields of interest

• Gothic, Horror, Noir and Science Fiction
• Genre theory
• Monster theory
• Critical theory of ideology
• Humanistic psychological theory
• Contemporary moral philosophy

Research

Currently, I am completing a book-length study of Horror-House fictions (forthcoming 2025). This study explores through the critical lens of humanistic psychology the various ways in which horror narratives from the early nineteenth to the late twentieth century have represented and explored the theme of possession, not in terms of the supernatural usurpation of the soul, but in terms of how the ideology of mass-production and consumption has shaped notions of human wellbeing and how these have been encoded as horror-scenarios of human beings possessed and destroyed by their possessions. This project was nominated for the Klokhuis Science Prize of 2021 and is aimed at making a contribution not only to the history of horror genre but also to enter into the wider pressing debate surrounding the inherent wastefulness and ecological hazardousness of modern western consumer culture.
Together with my students in the BA English Language and Culture and the MA Literary Studies, I am working on a volume of English translations of Dutch author Carel van Nievelt’s fantastic short stories. This is a project in cultural preservation, as Van Nievelt should be considered the Dutch Edgar Allan Poe, and is a significant exponent of Dutch Romanticism, but in danger of being forgotten (forthcoming 2025).

Curriculum Vitae

Since 2006 lecturer in English-language Literature and Culture, Leiden University, the Netherlands.
2001-2006: PhD thesis at Leiden University, the Netherlands:  Anarchic Alchemists: Dissident Androgyny in Anglo-American Gothic Fiction from Godwin to Melville (cum laude).
2000-2001: MPhil in the Gothic Imagination, Stirling University, Scotland: Masculinity as Monstrosity in William Godwin’s Fiction (with distinction).
1993-1998: Undergraduate degree (drs) in English Language and Literature, Leiden University: The Nineteenth-Century American Short Story as Hoax: An Inquiry into the Short Fiction of Edgar Allan Poe, Herman Melville and Mark Twain.

Teaching activities

• Literary Studies (MA)
  English Literature and Culture (MA)
  Literature in Society. Europe and Beyond (MA)
• I also teach in the Humanities Lab as well as the Two-Year Educational Masters

Grants and awards 

In 2020, I received 2000 euros from the Lakenhal Museum to develop my "doublespeak translator" project, which aims at developing teaching strategies to give young people the tools they need to properly read pernicious advertising messages.

Publications

Activities