Oisin McManus

Thesis Title: The Gothicisation of the Arctic in Nineteenth-Century British Literature

Supervisor: Professor Michèle Mendelssohn

Research Interests: Romantic and Victorian literature; the Gothic; polar literature; travel, nature and place writing; affect theory; the environmental humanities.

Doctoral Research: My thesis examines how and why British writers since the nineteenth century have turned to the Gothic to voice their experiences, imaginings and anxieties about the Arctic. I identify a discourse of fear that shapes much of the writing about the Arctic during this period and trace the ways in which British writers construct and employ this discourse. This new orientation, placing Gothic literature at the centre of Britain's polar print network, provides a fresh critical framework through which to understand the Arctic, its cultures and its manifold challenges.

Teaching: FHS Paper 6: Fairy Tales, Folklore and Fantasy in Michaelmas 2025; FHS Paper 5: Literature in English, 1760-1830 in Trinity 2026.

Conference Papers: "Gothic and Anti-Gothic Impulses in Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins's The Frozen Deep", Oxford English Graduate Conference, June 2026; "'All was darkness and terror': Gothicising the Arctic in Nineteenth-Century British Expeditionary Narratives", British Association for Victorian Studies, July 2026.