Staff Profile
Dr Adam Stock
Senior Lecturer in English Literature
/prod01/yorksjacuk/media/content-assets/staff-profile-images/Adam-Stock.jpg)
As a researcher I specialise in the interdisciplinary areas of Utopian Studies, sf and modernisms. My book, Dystopian Fiction and Political Thought: Narratives of World Politics (Routledge, 2019) examines dystopian fiction from the first half of the twentieth century. My current work focuses on questions about boundaries and borderlands, spatialisation, and the temporalities of speculative fiction in the twentieth and twenty-first century.
I joined York St John University as Lecturer in English Literature in 2015 and was promoted to Senior Lecturer in 2019. I hold a BA (Hons) in History and Politics (Birmingham, 2006), an MA in Cultural and Intellectual History (QMUL, 2007) and completed my PhD on mid-twentieth century dystopian fiction in the English Studies Department, Durham University (2012). My teaching practice at York St John has included literary and critical theory, experimental writing, the post-human turn and employability modules, in addition to those with a period and genre-based focus.
I began teaching at Durham University in 2008. Prior to joining York St John, I also taught at Newcastle University, where I was Research Associate from 2012 to 2015. During this period some of my work was awarded funding by the Leverhulme Trust and the AHRC. In summer 2015 I was Visiting Scholar at Concordia University, Montreal. I served as Hon. Treasurer of the Utopian Studies Society 2013 to 2019.
I welcome enquiries from potential research students with interests in any of my research and teaching specialisms.
- School – School of Humanities
- Email – a.stock@yorksj.ac.uk
- Phone – 01904 876 774
- Research - View my work in RaY
- Postgraduate Research Supervisor
Further information
Teaching
Courses that I teach
- LIT4004M Intro to Literary Studies II
- 2EN450 Literary Theory
- 2EN510 Literature at Work
- 2EN601 SF for Survival
- 3EN601 The Experimental Century
- LIT7001M Theorising the Contemporary
- LIT7004M World, Globe, Literature
- LIT7005M Speculative Bodies
Publications
- Stock, Adam. “Review: Hassler-Forest, Dan. Janelle Monáe’s Queer Afrofuturism.” Utopian Studies. In press (2024).
- Stock, Adam. “Migration and the dystopian imagination of European border regimes”, C21 Literature: journal of twenty-first century writings, 11, no. 1, February 2024. https://doi.org/10.16995/c21.9350.
- Stock, Adam. “Funding Utopia: Utopian Studies and the discourse of academic excellence”, Critical Forum edited by Lawrence Davis, Utopian Studies, vol. 34 no. 3, 2023, pp. 517-527. https://doi.org/10.5325/utopianstudies.34.3.0517.
- Stock, Adam, and Julia Ramírez-Blanco. “Response 1: Acting up in utopia”, Critical Forum edited by Lawrence Davis, Utopian Studies, vol. 34 no. 3, 2023, pp. 538-543. https://doi.org/10.5325/utopianstudies.34.3.0538.
- Stock, Adam, and Miranda Iossifidis, editors and introduction. Modernism/Modernity Print+ Special issue “cluster”: Modernism & Science Fiction, 6, cycle 3, May 2022. https://doi.org/10.26597/mod.0223.
- Stock, Adam. “Twentieth-Century Utopian Literature” in The Palgrave Handbook of Utopian and Dystopian Literature, edited by Peter Marks, Fátima Vieira and Jennifer Wagner-Lawlor. Palgrave, 2022, pp. 137-48. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-88654-7_11).
- Stock, Adam. “Review: Bagchi, Nivedita. Human Nature and Politics in Utopian and Anti-Utopian Fiction.” Utopian Studies 32, no. 3, pp. 696-699, 2021 https://doi.org/10.5325/utopianstudies.32.3.0696.
- Stock, Adam. “Temporal Politics: entangling fictions, futures and histories in contemporary and historical speculative fiction.” In Intersectional, Feminist and Non-Binary Approaches to Speculative Literature, Film and Art in the 21stCentury, edited by Katarzyna Ostalska and Tomasz Fisiak, Routledge, 2021, pp. 109-125.
- Stock, Adam. “Review: Bell, David M. Rethinking Utopia: Place, Power, Affect.” Utopian Studies vol 30 no. 1, 2019. pp. 118-125.
- Stock, Adam. Dystopian Fiction and Political Thought: Narratives of World Politics, Routledge, 2019.
- Bell, David, Adam Stock, and Nathaniel Coleman, editors. Imaginaries of the Future, Nos. 1-3, Open Library of Humanities, Mar 2018. https://olh.openlibhums.org/collections/special/01-bodies-and-media/
- López Galviz, Carlos, Nadia Bartolini, Mark Pendleton, and Adam Stock. “Reconfiguring Ruins: Beyond Ruinenlust” GeoHumanities 3, no. 2, July 2017, pp. 531-553. https://10.1080/2373566X.2017.1374874.
- Stock, Adam. “The Future-As-Past in Dystopian Fiction” Poetics Today 37, no. 3, 2016, pp. 415-442.
- Stock, Adam. “Review: Eckart Voigts and Alexandra Boller, editors, Dystopia, Science Fiction, Post-Apocalypse: Classics, New Tendencies, Model Interpretations.” Anglia: Journal of English Philology, vol. 134 no.2, pp. 345-349, 2016. https://doi.org/10.1515/ang-2016-0040.
- Stock, Adam. “Review: Patrick Parrinder, Utopian Literature and Science: From the Scientific Revolution to Brave New World and beyond.” Review of English Studies, 813-815, 2016. https://doi.org/10.1093/res/hgw031.
- Stock, Adam. “The Blind Logic of Plants: Biology and Enlightenment in John Wyndham’s The Day of The Triffids”. Science Fiction Studies 42 no. 3, 2015, pp. 433-457.
- Stock, Adam. “Little Nephews: Big Brother’s Literary Offspring” in George Orwell Now, edited by Richard Keeble, Peter Lang, 2015, pp. 63-80.
- Stock, Adam. “Dystopia as Post-Enlightenment Critique in George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four” in Dystopia Matters, edited by Fátima Vieira, Cambridge Scholars Press, 2013, pp. 115-29.
- Stock, Adam. “Of Pigs and Men: The Politics of Nature in George Orwell’s Fiction” in Orwell Today edited by Richard Keeble, Abramis Press, 2012, pp. 38-53.
- Stock, Adam. “The Organic and the Mechanical: Images of Man, the State and Society in the Eighteenth Century” vol. 3 no. 2, 2009. pp. 7-24.
Selected non-published conference contributions 2014-2024
- Make borders fiction again! Dystopian regimes, fantastic stories and critical speculative genres. Invited address. Countering Dystopia – Border, Order and Impasse. City University London, 14-15 Nov 2024.
- Forms of Migration: Liberal violence and colonialism in speculative fictions. Invited keynote address. Popular Culture and Democracy. Freiburg Institute of Advanced Studies, Freiburg University, 24-26 October 2024.
- Colonial Cartographies and Apocalyptic imaginaries: deserts at the end of the world. Invited paper. Languages of the Anthropocene. Conference held at Sapienza and the British School at Rome (co-organised with CAPAS, UCL and Roma Tre), 16-18 June 2024.
- Mapping the Unseen and Unhidden: deserts and drylands in apocalyptic SF imaginaries. CAPAS Fellows seminar, Heidelberg University, 28 May 2024
- Terraforming and desert terrains in apocalyptic and dystopian fictions. Un/Building the Future: The Country and The City in the Anthropocene, University of Warwick, UK, 15-16 June 2023.
- Squaring the circle or connecting the dots? Industrial action and social justice. Talking about teaching to transgress. York St John University, 22 June 2023.
- Critical dystopianism in the employability classroom. “Becoming Utopian”: invited roundtable participant. 22nd International Conference of the Utopian Studies Society, Brighton, UK. 13-15 July 2022.
- Funding Utopia. “The past and future of Utopian Studies”: invited roundtable participant. 22nd International Conference of the Utopian Studies Society, Brighton, UK. 13-15 July 2022.
- Speculative desert terrains in apocalyptic and dystopian fictions. Invited keynote address. Centre for Popular Cultural Studies symposium, Linnaeus University, Växjö, Sweden, 19-20 May 2022.
- Utopian Possibilities – Utopian Solutions? Roundtable, 21st International Conference of the Utopian Studies Society, Porto, Portugal (online conference), 10-12 December 2021.
- Spaces of Dystopia. Invited keynote address. (Im)perfect women in (im)perfect worlds: Dystopias, utopias, and feminism at the beginning of the 21st century”, Nicolaus Copernicus University, Poland (online conference) 14 May 2021.
- Whither hope? Teaching utopia(nism) through the pandemic crisis. Roundtable (organiser). Living in the End Times: Utopian and Dystopian Representations of Pandemics in Fiction, Film and Culture. Cappadocia University, Turkey (online conference) 13-15 Jan 2021.
- Deserting futures and states of uncertainty: re-thinking desert dystopian settings. Beyond Borders: Empires, Bodies, Science Fictions. London Science Fiction Research Community (online conference) 10-12 Sept 2020.
- On Colonies, Tribes, and Contact: Confronting Utopia. 20th International Conference of the Utopian Studies Society, Prato 1-5 July 2019.
- Not all Nazis: feminist anti-fascist dystopian literature and masculinity in the 1930s and ‘40s. Invited keynote address. Under His Eye?: Women in Feminist and Futuristic Literature, Film and Art. University of Łódź. 17-18 May 2019.
- Utopia Now. Invited seminar paper. Sociology department seminar, Newcastle University, 21 Nov 2018.
- Utopian Rubbish: Place, Waste and Temporality. 19th international conference of the Utopian Studies Society, Tarragona 9-12 July 2018.
- “Troubles Began Quietly”: Queer Futurity in E.M. Forster’s “The Machine Stops”. 18th International conference of the Utopian Studies Society, Gdansk 4-8 July 2017.
- “Like a fever, or a Daydream”: Ruins, Order, and Endings Invited keynote address. “Finalities” Postgraduate conference, York St John University, 6 June 2017.
- Ruin in Utopia. Invited seminar paper. Lancaster University 23 May 2017.
- Ant-Machines and Social Bodies. “Speculative Bodies” School of Humanities, Religion and Philosophy, York St John University 22 May 2017.
- Ruin in Utopia. Congreso internacional 500 años de Utopía. Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, 15-16 Dec 2016.
- The Ten Commandments, Revisited: a round table on approaches to ruins. Past Matters, Research Futures: AHRC conference, Royal Society London, 12-13 Dec 2016
- Living After the End Times: Utopia, Apocalypse, and Ruins. ACLA, Harvard University, 17-20 Mar 2016.
- Re-thinking ruins and temporality in fiction and film. AHRC Care for the Future/Labex Pasts in the Present Joint Workshop, Royal Society London 22-23 Apr 2015.
- “Sight-seeing in Alien Englands”: Modernism and provincial industrial ruins. Empty Spaces. IHR London 11 Apr 2015.
- Blast Paris! Ambivalent topographies in Modernist Fiction. Society for Utopian Studies. Montreal, 22-24 Oct 2014.
- To the Metropolis, and Beyond! Ambivalent Topographies in the Fiction of Wyndham Lewis. European Avant-garde and Modernist Studies network (EAM). University of Helsinki 28-31 Aug 2014.
