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Dr David McAllister

Positions held:
  • Head of Education and Student Experience – Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Humanities and Social Sciences Central
  • Reader in Nineteenth-Century Literature and Culture, School of Creative Arts, Culture and Communication
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  • Overview

    Overview

    Biography

    David joined ÌÇÐÄlogoÈë¿Ú in 2011 having previously taught at the universities of Newcastle and York. He also held a postdoctoral fellowship with the Cambridge Victorian Studies Group, as part of their Leverhulme-funded projectÌýÌý

    David is currently Head of Education and Student Experience in the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences. HeÌýholdsÌýfaculty-wide oversight of quality assurance, and programme approval and validation, across multiple Schools and disciplines, including scrutiny of new programme proposals and periodic review.

    His interdisciplinary research spans the long nineteenth century, with a particular focus on medical humanities, histories and technologies of ageing, representations of death and burial and their influence on shaping public spaces and medical discourse, Dickens's writing, histories of inter-generational justice (in other words, how did generations form, constitute themselves, and relate to each other during a period of rapid demographic transition in the nineteenth century?). He also has wider research interests in the gothic, the Victorian novel, Victorian educational theories, masculinities, and nineteenth-century intellectual history. He has published on a wide range of writers including Gaskell, Dickens, Wordsworth, Elizabeth Hamilton, Carlyle, Tennyson, William Godwin and Jeremy Bentham.

    He is also the General Editor of the journal , and is currently writing a book about Dickens's novelistic construction of midlife and its effect on his experiments in narrative. His most recent publications include the co-edited essay collectionÌýGraveyard Gothic (Manchester University Press, 2024), a chapter on emotional contagion in Mary BartonÌý(the Routledge Companion to Elizabeth Gaskell,ÌýRoutledge, 2026) and an essay on the poetry of geologist and dinosaur hunter Giden Mantell, which can be found here:Ìý

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    Highlights

    • Graveyard Gothic, ed. Eric Parisot,ÌýDavid McAllister and Xavier Aldana Reyes (Manchester University Press, 2024).Ìý

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    • ‘Catching the Trick of Grief: Contagious Emotion and the Work of Mourning in Mary Barton’. In The Routledge Companion to Elizabeth Gaskell (Routledge, 2026).

    Office hours

    I don't have any fixed office hours, but I'm always happy to hear from current, former, or prospective students so please email me to arrange an appointment.

    Administrative responsibilities

    • Head of Education and Student Experience
    • Chair of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences Education Committee
    • Member of the Faculty Executive Committee
    • Member of ÌÇÐÄlogoÈë¿Ú Education and Student Experience Committee
    • Member of Academic Board
    • Member of College Programmes Committee

    ORCID

  • Research

    Research

    Research interests

    • The Victorian novel
    • Medical Humanities
    • Charles Dickens
    • Death, burial, hauntings
    • The cultural construction of ageing, longevity, and the life course
    • Victorian speculative fiction
    • cemetery and graveyard history
    • the literary culture of the first half of the nineteenth century
    • Health technologies
  • Supervision and teaching

    Supervision and teaching

    Supervision

    Supervisions within ÌÇÐÄlogoÈë¿Ú:
    5

    I've recently supervised to completion doctorates on a range of topics, including queer spiritualism, steampunk and the city, rural Victorian mourning practices, and religious conceptions of the spiritual body. I am happy to consider enquiries from potential doctoral students on topics relating to any aspect of nineteenth-century literature and culture, including, but not limited to my current and past research interests: Dickens, Wordsworth, death culture, ageing, vagrancy, etc etc.

    Please do contact me at d.mcallister@bbk.ac.ukÌýif you would like an informal discussion about your ideas for a PhD.

    Current doctoral researchers

    • SHANI CADWALLENDER
      Nature of supervision:
      JOINT PRINCIPAL SUPERVISOR,
      Title of thesis:
      Trees Revisited: Exploring the Nature of Identity in Arboreal Poetry.

    Doctoral alumni since 2013-14

    • CLAIRE COCK-STARKEY
      Nature of supervision:
      Principal Supervisor,
      Title of thesis:
      The Folklore of Death and Dying in Nineteenth Century England
      Awarded:
      2026
    • AVERY CURRAN
      Nature of supervision:
      Joint Principal Supervisor,
      Title of thesis:
      'Hysteric, hybrid half-and-halfs': queerness in nineteenth-century British and American spiritualism
      Awarded:
      2026
    • HELENA ESSER
      Nature of supervision:
      Joint Principal Supervisor,
      Awarded:
      2020
    • JEN MORIARTY
      Nature of supervision:
      Joint Principal Supervisor,
      Title of thesis:
      Spiritual Bodies, Material Minds: Identity and Embodiment in the Mid-Victorian Afterlife
      Awarded:
      2023

    Teaching

    I'm not currently teaching as I have taken on a substantial role in Faculty management.

  • Publications

    Publications

    Article

    • McAllister, David (2024) . 19: Interdisciplinary Studies in the Long Nineteenth Century 2024 (36), ISSN 1755-1560.
    • McAllister, David (2021) . Age, Culture, Humanities (5), ISSN 2375-8856.
    • McAllister, David (2020) . Victoriographies: A Journal of Nineteenth-Century Writing 10 (3), pp. 228-247. ISSN 2044-2416.
    • McAllister, David (2013) . Modern Language Review 108 (2), pp. 416-437. ISSN 0026-7937.
    • McAllister, David (2013) . Forum for Modern Language Studies 49 (3), pp. 229-243. ISSN 0015-8518.
    • McAllister, David (2011) . Romanticism and Victorianism on the Net (59-60), ISSN 1916-1441.
    • McAllister, David (2009) . The Dickensian 105 (478), pp. 101-108. ISSN 0012-2440.
    • McAllister, David (2009) . The Dickensian 105 (478), pp. 101-108. ISSN 0012-2440.
    • McAllister, David (2007) . Dickens Studies Annual 38, pp. 1-17. ISSN 0084-9812.

    Book

    • Parisot, E. and McAllister, David and Aldana Reyes, X., eds. (2024) . Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press. ISBN 9781526166319.
    • McAllister, David (2018) . Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978319977300.

    Book review

    • McAllister, David (2023) .

    Book section

    • Mcallister, David (2026) . In: Ludlow, E. and Styler, R. (eds.) The Routledge Companion to Elizabeth Gaskell. London, UK: Routledge. ISBN 9781032611129.
    • Luckhurst, Roger (2024) . In: Parisot, E. and Mcallister, David and Reyes, X.A. (eds.) Graveyard Gothic. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press. pp. 47-60. ISBN 9781526166319.
    • McAllister, David (2024) . In: Parisot, E. and McAllister, David and Aldana Reyes, X. (eds.) Graveyard Gothic. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press. ISBN 9781526166319.
    • Parisot, Eric and McAllister, David and Aldana Reyes, Xavier (2024) . In: Parisot, E. and McAllister, David and Aldana Reyes, X. (eds.) Graveyard Gothic. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press. ISBN 9781526166319.
    • Parisot, E. and McAllister, David and Aldana Reyes, X. (2024) . In: Parisot, E. and McAllister, David and Aldana Reyes, X. (eds.) Graveyard Gothic. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press. ISBN 9781526166319.
  • Business and community

    Business and community

    I have media training.

    Outreach

    I've regularly acted as historical consultant on film and TV adaptations of literary texts including for Sky, the BBC, and Playground Entertainment. I've also appeared as a talking head and as a podcast guest on numerous arts and culture programmes related to Victorian topics.