Evert Jan van Leeuwen
University Lecturer
- Name
- Dr. E.J. van Leeuwen
- Telephone
- +31 71 527 3949
- e.j.van.leeuwen@hum.leidenuniv.nl
- ORCID iD
- 0000-0002-4704-3492
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.
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.
University Lecturer
- Faculty of Humanities
- Centre for the Arts in Society
- Moderne Engelstalige letterkunde
- Leeuwen E.J. van 21 June 2023, De verborgen effecten van reclameboodschappen. Natuur Leiden S02/E05 [podcast].
- Leeuwen E.J. van (2023), Animal ownership and ecological consciousness in three American horror texts, Comparative American Studies 21(1-2): 131-146.
- Leeuwen E.J. van & N.G.J. Peeters 1 April 2022, Aflevering 35: H.P. Lovecraft. Radio Horzelnest. Leiden University [podcast].
- Leeuwen E.J. van Fernández Jiménez M. (2022), Pernicious Properties: From Haunted to Horror Houses: An Interview with Evert Jan van Leeuwen, Revista Española de Estudios Norteamericanos 3(2): 44-56.
- Pacolet J., Leeuwen E.J. van & Peeters N 19 August 2022, Aflevering 41: Stephen King. Radio Horzelnes. Leiden University [podcast].
- Leeuwen E.J. van (2021), Telescope of the Imagination: Utopian and Dystopian Futures in the Dutch Republic 1780-1799: Charles Brockden Brown Society Conference . Past Futures: Thinking in Crisis 14 October 2021 - 16 December 2021.
- Leeuwen E.J. van (2021), De Dubbelspraakvertaler: Lakenhal tentoonstelling If Things Grow Wrong (Lakenhal Museum). [other].
- Leeuwen E.J. van (5 November 2021), Squid Game and the Significance of Derivative Television. leidenartsinsocietyblog. Leiden: LUCAS. [blog entry].
- Leeuwen E.J. van (2020), Martha Peake and the Madness of "Free Trade". In: Foley M. & Duncan R. (Eds.), Patrick McGrath and his Worlds no. 39. Oxon: Routledge. 32-48.
- Leeuwen E.J. van (2020), Poe’s Presidential Prophecy: King Pest Reincarnated as King Trump, The Satirist : .
- Leeuwen E.J. van (2020), "Ontworteld" kort verhaal in bundel Zonderlingen (Godijn Publishing). [other].
- Leeuwen E.J. van (2020), Review of: Barnard Philip, Emmett Hilary & Shapiro Stephen (2019), The Oxford Handbook of Charles Brockden Brown . Oxford: Oxford University Press. Early American Literature 55(2): 565-570.
- Leeuwen E.J. van (2020), Review of: Nally Claire (2019), Steampunk: gender, subculture & the neoVictorian . London: Bloomsbury Academic,. Journal of Gender Studies 29(6): 730-731.
- Leeuwen E.J. van (2019) Leren in het duister: horror en fantasie als onderwijsmateriaal. Review of: Fabrizi M.A. (2018), Horror Literature and Dark Fantasy: Callenging Genres. Critical Literarcy Teaching Series: Challenging Authors and Genres no. 10. Leiden: Brill. Vooys: tijdschrift voor letteren 37(1): 74-77.
- Leeuwen E.J. van (2019), Dennis Wheatley's Satanic Continent. In: Newton M.S. & Leeuwen E.J. van (Eds.), Haunted Europe: Continental Connections in English-Language Gothic Writing, Film and New Media. New York: Routledge. 123-140.
- Newton M.S. & Leeuwen E.J. van (Eds.) (2019), Haunted Europe: Continental Connections in English-Language Gothic Writing, Film and New Media. New York: Routledge.
- Newton M.S. & Leeuwen E.J. van (2019), Introduction. In: Newton M.S. & Leeuwen E.J. van (Eds.), Haunted Europe: Continental Connections in English-Language Gothic Writing, Film and New Media. New York: Routledge. 1-16.
- Leeuwen E.J. van (2019), Public reading of Richard Matheson's "Born of Man and Woman" (Taal Museum). [other].
- Leeuwen E.J. van (2019), Devil's Advocates House of Usher. Leighton Buzzard: Auteur.
- Leeuwen E.J. van (2018), The Void (2016) Film Recensie. [other].
- Leeuwen E.J. van (2018), Horror films en heavy metal - koek en ei in Tilburg, DeNachtvlinders.nl : .
- Leeuwen E.J. van (2018), The Meg, Fallen Kingdom en de ecohorrortraditie, DeNachtvlinders.nl : .
- Leeuwen E.J. van (2018), Utopianism. In: Elbert M.M. (Ed.), Nathaniel Hawthorne in Context. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 115-125.
- Leeuwen E.J. van (2018), “1818 Frankenstein in 2018” – Waar ging het boek ook al weer over?, DeNachtvlinders.nl : .
- Leeuwen E.J. van (2018), Fantastic Metal Albums as Genre Art: Teaching Metal in the Literary Studies Classroom. Hardwired VI: So far, so good, so what? Approaching the Metal Realities 3 May 2018 - 5 May 2018.
- Leeuwen E.J. van (2017), Review of: Broughton L. (2016), THE EURO-WESTERN: REFRAMING GENDER RACE AND THE ‘OTHER’ IN FILM. London: I.B. Tauris. Journal of European Popular Culture 8(1): 97-100.
- Leeuwen E.J. van (2016), Hero of Horror: Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849). In: Franssen G. & Honings R. (Eds.), Celebrity Authorship and Afterlives in English and American Literature. London: Palgrave.
- Leeuwen E.J. van (2015), From Hell House to Homecoming: Haunted House Fictions as Allegories of Personality Growth, Studies in Gothic Fashion 4(1/2): 42-56.
- Leeuwen E.J. van (19 October 2015), New William Godwin Discovery. Archive Spotlight. GB: British Society for Romantic Studies. [blog entry].
- Leeuwen E.J. van (2015), “The Price of Being Godwin” ISECS, Erasmus University Rotterdam, NL. .
- Leeuwen E.J. van (Ed.) (2014), Poetic Meditations on Death: A Gothic and Romantic Literary Genre of the Long Eighteenth Century (1693-1858) . Lewiston: EMP.
- Leeuwen E.J. van (2014) Review of "Paul Kléber Monod, Solomon's Secret Arts: The Occult in the Age of Enlightenment" and "John V. Fleming, The Dark Side of the Enlightenment: Wizards, Alchemists, and Spiritual Seekers in the Age of Enlightenment". Review of: Kléber Monod Paul & Fleming John V. (2013), Solomon's Secret Arts: The Occult in the Age of Enlightenment and The Dark Side of the Enlightenment: Wizards, Alchemists, and Spiritual Seekers in the Age of Enlightenment. New Haven and New York: Yale YP and Norton. The BARS Review (44).
- Leeuwen E.J. van (2014), Griezelig Beroemd: de vereenzelviging van horrorauteur en horrorfictie, Vooys: tijdschrift voor letteren 32(4): 6-16.
- Leeuwen E.J. van (2013), The Graveyard Aesthetics of Revolutionary Elegiac Verse: Remembering the Revolution as a Sacred Cause. In: McDonnell Michael A., Corbould Clare, Clarke Frances M. & Fitzhugh Brundage W. (Eds.), Remembering the Revolution: Memory, History and Nation Making from Independence to the Civil War. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press. 75-92.
- Leeuwen E.J. van (2013), Review of: (2011), David Sandner, Critical Discourses of the Fantastic, 1712-1831. Farnham: Ashgate. BARS Bulletin and Review 42: 32-33.
- Leeuwen E.J. van (2013), Hawthorne and the 'old Dutch Wizards': Matter and Spirit in the Marble Faun, Nathaniel Hawthorne Review 39(1): 35-56.
- Leeuwen E.J. van (2011), Alchemical Construction of Genders in Anglo-American Fiction, 1799-1852: Visions of Utopia as Androgynous. Lewiston NY: Edwin Mellen Press.
- Leeuwen E.J. van (2011), Monstrous Masculinity and Emotional Torture in William Godwin's Fleetwood; or the New Man of Feeling. In: Ruberg W. & Steenbergh K. (Eds.), Sexed Sentiments: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Gender and Emotion. Amsterdam: Rodopi. 117-140.
- Leeuwen E.J. van (2011), Theodore Roszak's The Memoirs of Elizabeth Frankenstein: A Countercultural Perspective on Alchemy, Gender and the Scientific Revolution. In: Tinkler-Villani V.M. & Barfoot C.C. (Eds.), Restoring the Mystery of the Rainbow: Literature's Refraction of Science volume 1. Amsterdam: Rodopi. 449-466.
- Leeuwen E.J. van (2011), The Religious Sublime in An Essay on the History and Reality of Apparitions (1727). In: Makikalli A. & Mueller A.K.E. (Eds.), Positioning Daniel Defoe's Non-Fiction: Form, Function, Genre. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. 169-185.
- Leeuwen E.J. van (2010), "Though Hermes never taught thee": The Anti-Patriarchal Tendency of Charles Brockden Brown's Mercurial Outcast Carwin, the Biloquist, European Journal of American Studies (1): .
- Leeuwen E.J. van (2010), Godwin, Bulwer and Poe: Intellectual Elitism and the Utopian Impulse of Popular Fiction. In: Leeuwen E.J. van & Corporaal M.C.M. (Eds.), The Literary Utopias of Cultural Communities 1790-1910. Amsterdam: Rodopi. 47-66.
- Leeuwen E.J. van & Corporaal M.C.M. (Eds.) (2010), The Literary Utopias of Cultural Communities, 1790-1910. Amsterdam: Rodopi.
- Leeuwen E.J. van (2009), Funeral Sermons and Graveyard Poetry: the Ecstasy of Death and Bodily Resurrection, Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies 32(3): 353-372.
- Leeuwen E.J. van (2008), Gothic Eurowesterns: A Grotesque Perspective on a Hollywood Myth [herschreven en geillustreerde versie van artikel dat eerder verscheen in 2005 op www.kiez21.org], Bright Lights Film Journal 60: .
- Leeuwen E.J. van (2008), The Celluloid Reality of Everyday Life in John Updike's In the Beauty of the Lilies, Perspectives 2(2): 31-43.
- Leeuwen E.J. van (2008), Gothic Eurowesterns: A Grotesque Perspective on a Hollywood Myth, Bright Lights Film Journal online(60): .
- Leeuwen E.J. van (2008), "Monstrous Masculinity in Godwin's Fleetwood" at Gender and Emotion Workshop Limerick, Ireland. Gender and Emotion International, Interdisciplinary Workshop 20 June 2008 - 20 June 2008.
- Leeuwen E.J. van (2008) Review. Review of: Fulford T. (2006), Romantic Indians: Native Americans, British Literature, & Transatlantic Culture 1756-1830 no. 4. Oxford: Oxford University Press. English Studies 89: 499-500.
- Leeuwen E.J. van (2007), The Western Goes Dutch: Catholic Cowboys, Civilized Indians, and a Miniaturized West in the Ardensoog Series. In: Varner P. (Ed.), Westerns: Paperback Novels and Movies from Hollywood. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. 199-215.
- Leeuwen E.J. van (2007), "Roger Chillingworth and The Scarlet Letter's Androgynous Ideal: A Case-Study in Transatlantic Interfigurality, Essenses 14(1): 5-23.
- Leeuwen E.J. van (2006), “Utopie en ironie. De genderloze toekomstvisie van de Amerikaanse auteur Charles Brockden Brown (1771-1810)”, Jaarboek voor Vrouwengeschiedenis 26: 81-103.
- Leeuwen E.J. van (7 September 2006), Anarchic alchemists: dissident androgyny in Anglo-American gothic fiction from Godwin to Melville (Dissertatie, Faculty of Arts, Leiden University). Supervisor(s) and Co-supervisor(s): Haen T.L. d', Kardux J.C. & Tinkler-Villani V.M.
- Leeuwen E.J. van (2006), Exploring and Colonising the Arctic: Subversive Verisimilitude in Hogg’s Allan Gordon and Poe’s Arthur Gordon Pym, Perspectives 2(1): 75-92.
- Leeuwen E.J. van (2005), The Gothic Eurowestern:Ghosts, Wanderers and Fantastic Landscapes in Grotesque Perspective, Kiez21 : .
- Leeuwen E.J. van (3 September 2005), Kinderen van de canon. Reformatorisch Dagblad: 1-1.
- Leeuwen E.J. van (2004), “Public Similarity/Private Difference: Genre and Identity Construction in Jane Austen and Charles Brocken Brown”, Frame. Tijdschrift voor Literatuurwetenschap 17(2-3): 39-54.