Dr Diletta De Cristofaro

Assistant Professor

Department: Humanities

I research and write about contemporary literature and culture. I am particularly interested in North American and British writings responding to twenty-first-century anxieties and crises, and in听what these narratives tell us about our society, our sense of self, and of time. I am an expert in the apocalyptic imagination, especially narratives about the climate crisis. My book on the topic, , is out with Bloomsbury. In addition to the environmental humanities, my work intervenes in the medical humanities. Between 2020 and 2024, I was the Principal Investigator on two projects exploring sleep and sleeplessness in the twenty-first century: the research project 鈥溾€� (funded by the Wellcome Trust and the European Commission) and the public engagement project "" (funded by the Wellcome Trust).听

My essays and criticism have appeared in publications ranging from Parallax,听ASAP/J,听Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction, and听boundary 2 online, to Salon,听The Week,听搁罢脡,听The Conversation, and听Post45 Contemporaries. I am a public speaker and contribute to literary and science festivals, such as Durham Book Festival, the European Researchers Night, and the Being Human Festival.

In 2021-2022, I was a Marie Sk艂odowska-Curie Research Fellow at Politecnico di Milano (Italy), and in 2017 I was a Research Fellow at the Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas at Austin (USA). Since 2018, I have been part of the Executive Committee of the British Association for Contemporary Literary Studies.听听

For up-to-date information about my work see my 听and the website of my current research project, "".

Email Diletta

Research Themes and Scholarly Interests

I鈥檓 particularly interested in North American and British writings responding to twenty-first-century anxieties and crises that range from climate breakdown and other apocalyptic threats for my first book to the sleep crisis for my second book project.听

My current research project, "Writing the Sleep Crisis", was awarded funding from the Wellcome Trust and the European Commission - visit the project's website . This is the first study to explore cultural engagements with the so-called sleep crisis, namely, contemporary society's presumed widespread sleep deprivation and rise of sleep disorders. I consider a wide range of twenty-first-century writings across fiction, non-fiction, and digital culture. Analysing these texts, I explore the concerns about contemporary life highlighted by the notion of a sleep crisis and what these concerns reveal about the relationship between health, in particular mental health, and neoliberal ideologies, especially those shaping our sense of self, experience of time, and working lives.听

I am an expert in the contemporary apocalyptic imagination. My book on the topic,听, is out with Bloomsbury.听Today, we tend to think about the apocalypse as a catastrophe of overwhelmingly dystopian consequences but, traditionally, apocalyptic narratives concern the advent of a utopian world at the end of history. My research investigates what is at stake in this shift to a dystopian apocalyptic imagination by theorising the significance of time in the contemporary post-apocalyptic novel.听You can read the introduction of my book on the contemporary post-apocalyptic novel听.

My work on the apocalyptic imagination engages with the threat of climate breakdown and the Anthropocene, the current geological epoch defined by the devastating impact of human activities on the Earth system. With Daniel Cordle, I edited , a special issue of听C21 Literature: Journal of 21st-Century Writing听(2018).

In 2017, I was awarded a听Harry Ransom Center听Research Fellowship in the Humanities at the University of Texas at Austin (USA) to research the previously unexplored archival materials of the Jim Crace Papers. You can read more about this project .