Academia.eu Profile: https://birkbeck.academia.edu/CraigThomson
Birkbeck Profile: http://www.bbk.ac.uk/arts/research/research-students/english-and-humanities/Craig-Thomson
Craig Thomson – MA, BA (Hons), PhD Candidate (Birkbeck, UoL)
Craig Thomson is a PhD candidate from Birkbeck, University of London whose research interests include: Horror/Gothic literature, Monster Theory and Folklore Studies. He is a previous graduate of the University of Lincoln and a member of The International Gothic Association, The Folklore Society and The Midlands Network of Popular Culture.
His current research investigates the rise of the werewolf within the Gothic literature of the late 19th and early 20th Century, particularly in relation to Folklore, Popular Culture and modern enchantment.
By applying this in relation to texts such as George W.M. Reynold’s Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf (1846-47), Rudyard Kipling’s ‘The Mark of the Beast’ (1890) and Clemence Housman’s ‘The Werewolf’ (1896) this project will attempt to shed light on the emergence of the werewolf within the mid-19th Century as a key figure within Gothic literature; analysing not only the reasons for the figure’s resurfacing within the popular literature of the period, but also its continued consolidation and development into the early 20th Century.
Such work will provide a detailed and timely analysis of a period in the creature’s cultural history that is often ignored or glossed over in favour of its medieval or contemporary appearances.
Craig has established the Monstrous Folklore project as a way of interacting within other researchers and further cultivating research in the divergent areas of folklore, monster studies, werewolf studies and Gothic studies.
Research Interests:
- Folklore Studies and Folkloristics
- Gothic Literature and Werewolf Studies
- Monster Theory
- Popular culture and Cultural Studies
- Ecocriticism
- Science Fiction and Fantasy
- Graphic Novels
- Anthropology
- Cryptozoology
- Paleontology
Monstrous Folklore - Werewolves and the 19th Century 