Dr Jo Waugh

Teaching

I teach on modules across all year groups, and contribute to the MA as well as supervising PhDs in the department, I designed and direct modules on contagion and infection in literature, and on Victorian literature.

Research

My current research is primarily interested in the Brontës, in various different contexts. I have written about the significance of rabies in Charlotte Brontë's "Shirley," and my monograph, "Charlotte Brontë and Contagion" was published in 2024, and a chapter on the representation of reading and rereading the Brontës in popular culture will appear in an edited collection, "The Brontës and the Arts" this year. I am currently writing about Charlotte Brontë's many and complex uses of her pseudonym, Currer Bell, for another edited collection, and am preparing a handbook on "Reading the Brontës" for Routledge. I have written several articles for "The Conversation" about the Brontës, on topics from "trigger warnings" to TB, and have also co-authored articles on satire, its history and contemporary significance with my colleague Dr Adam J Smith.

Publications

Monograph

Charlotte Brontë and Contagion: Myths, Memes, and the Politics of Infection. Palgrave Macmillan, 2024.

Works in Progress

“C. Brontë Must Not Here Appear”: Currer Bell, Satirical Alter-Ego.” Routledge Companion to the Brontës, edited by Claire O’Callaghan and Sarah Fanning, Routledge.

“Tuberculosis in the Brontës’ Novels.” Palgrave Handbook of Consumption and Tuberculosis in Literature and Culture, edited by Katherine Byrne and Clark Lawlor.

Reading The Brontës. Routledge.

Articles and Book Chapters

“The Brontës and Popular Culture” in Edinburgh Companion to the Brontës and the Arts. Eds Amber Regis and Deborah Wynne. Edinburgh University Press, due January 2025

Editorial. The Brontës: Sickness, Contagion, Isolation. Spec. issue of Brontë Studies ed. Jo Waugh. 46:2 (2021). 97-101.

 “Staying Calm and Seizing the Iron: Contagion, Fermentation, and the Management of the Rabies Threat in Charlotte Brontë’s Shirley.” Victorian Review 42:1 (2016). 149-166.

Academic Reviews and Review Essays

Review of Kari Nixon, Kept from All Contagion: Germ Theory, Disease, and the Dilemma of Human Contact in Late Nineteenth-Century Literature. Victorian Network, forthcoming 2023.

Review of Ross G. Forman, “A Parasite for Sore Eyes: Rereading Infection Metaphors in Bram Stoker’s Dracula.” Journal of Literature and Science 10:1 (2017). 89-90.

I also review submissions for the journal Brontë Studies, a special edition of which I edited in 2020-21 (see above, “Articles and Book Chapters).

Media Writing and Other Writing

Smith, Adam and Jo Waugh. “Satire, Death and Disease.” Contagious Laughter: Talking About Satire in the Age of Covid-19. Eds Adam Smith and Jo Waugh. Green Teeth Press, 2022. 

 “Jane Eyre – content warnings are as old as the novel itself.” The Conversation, January 2022. Published in The Independent.

 “If All Else Perished.” Article for programme. Wuthering Heights. Dir. Emma Rice. National Theatre, now touring US.

Waugh, Jo and Adam Smith. “The Prince—the great tradition of satirizing the royal family is under threat as they become more human.” The Conversation, 2021.

Waugh, Jo and Adam Smith. “Titania McGrath: Twitter parody of “wokeness” owes a lot to satirists of the 18^th century.” The Conversation, 2019.

 “How the stigma of contagion keeps alive Romantic notions of how the Brontës died.” The Conversation October 2018. Published in The Independent.

Invited talks and conferences

Keynote Lecture and Invited Talks

“Typhus and ‘The Common Brotherhood of Man’: Jane Eyre, Contagion, Community, and Leadership.” Invited Research Seminar. University of Huddersfield. October 2022.

“The Brontës and Contagion.” Keynote, Locating the Brontës Symposium. University of Sheffield. November 2019.

Organized Conference

Satire: Deaths, Births, Legacies. Co-hosted and organized with Dr Adam J Smith. One-day conference with international attendance, keynote speaker Professor Daniel Cook, University of Dundee. June 2018.

Selected Conferences

“Satire and Unlearning the Literature A Level.” Presented as part of panel “Teaching Satire” with the York Research Unit for the Study of Satire. English Shared Futures. Manchester Metropolitan University. July 2022.

“’A Flattering Malady’: Charlotte Brontë and Tuberculosis.” Brontë2020 Conference. Online, hosted by Claire O’Callaghan and Sarah Fanning to raise funds for the Brontë Parsonage. September 2020.

“Feral Hogs and Participatory Satire: Memes and Satire on Twitter.” Contemporary Canons and Values in Contemporary Literary Studies Conference. University of Central London. September 2019.

“’Common Brotherhood’ and Contagion: The Typhus Epidemic of 1847.” “The Disease of Caring”: Medical Professionals and Activism from the Nineteenth Century to the Present. Birkbeck, University of London. October 2018.

“‘My Accent? My Gender? My Size?’: ‘Coarse’ Brontës in To Walk Invisible.” The Coarseness of the Brontës: A Reappraisal. Durham University, August 2017.

“Brontë Bodies Consumed.” Consuming (the) Victorians, 2016 Annual Conference of the British Association for Victorian Studies. Cardiff University, September 2016.

Public engagement

Uplandish World Café, York St John University, June 2017.

“The Brontës” Coffee House Talk, York Explore, April 2017.

“The Northern Powerhouse” Coffee House Talk, York Explore, November 2015.

Professional activities

I am the co-founder of the York Research Unit for the Study of Satire, and host a monthly podcast on the form, function, future and history of satire with my colleague Adam Smith.