Ken Gelder is Professor of English and Theatre Studies at the University of Melbourne. He has been a visiting fellow at University College and King's Colege in London, and the University of Edinburgh.
Ken currently teaches courses in modern and contemporary literature, popular/genre fiction, Australian literature and global crime narratives. His books include Reading the Vampire (Routledge, 1994), Uncanny Australia: Sacredness and Identity in a Postcolonial Nation (with Jane M. Jacobs: Melbourne University Press [MUP], 1998), Popular Fiction: The Logics and Practices of a Literary Field (Routlegde, 2004), Subcultures: Cultural Histories and Social Practice (Routledge, 2007), and New Vampire Cinema (British Film Institute, 2012). He is also editor of The Horror Reader (Routledge, 2000), The Subcultures Reader: Second Edition (Routledge, 2007) and New Directions in Popular Fiction (Palgrave, 2016). His book Adapting Bestsellers: Fantasy, Franchise and the Afterlife of Storyworlds will be published by Cambridge University Press in early 2020.
Ken is also a co-director (with Denise Varney) of the Australian Centre in the Faculty of Arts. He is co-author (with Paul Salzman) of two Australian literary histories - The New Diversity: Australian Fiction 1970-1988 (McPhee Gribble, 1989) and After the Celebration: Australian Fiction 1989-2007 (MUP, 2009) - and co-editor (with Rachael Weaver) of four anthologies of colonial popular fiction, covering the Gothic, crime fiction, romance and adventure (all published by MUP) as well as The Colonial Journals, and the emergence of Australian literary culture (University of Western Australia Publishing, 2014). His most recent book with Rachael Weaver is Colonial Australian Fiction: Character Types, Social Formations and the Colonial Economy (Sydney University Press, 2017). Their co-authored book The Colonial Kangaroo Hunt will be published by Melbourne University Publishing in early 2020.
Ken is on the editorial boards of the following journals: Australian Journal of Popular Culture, Australian Humanities Review, Adaptation, antiTHESIS, Journal of Popular Romance Studies, Transgresive Culture, and Cine-Excess e-journal. He is also on the editorial board of the International Gothic Series, and the Anthem Australian Humanities Research series.
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Credentials
Positions
Professor
Culture And Communication
Education
Doctor of Philosophy
The University of Stirling
Master of Arts
Flinders University of South Australia
Bachelor of Arts with Honours
Flinders University of South Australia