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Dr Andrew Griffiths

Profile summary

  • Regional Academic Staff
  • Staff Tutor and Senior Lecturer
  • Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences
  • School of Arts & Humanities
  • English & Creative Writing
  • andrew.griffiths

Professional biography

I completed my doctorate at the University of Exeter in 2011 and hold an MA from the same institution. I have taught for the OU since 2009 and have also taught at the universities of Exeter and Plymouth, specialising in Victorian Literature. A revised version of my doctoral thesis was published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2015 under the title The New Journalism, the New Imperialism and the Fiction of Empire, 1870-1900.

Research interests

My major research focus is on popular culture and imperialism in the long nineteenth century. My monograph, The New Journalism, the New Imperialism and the Fiction of Empire (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), explored the ways in which fiction and journalism combined to produce a distinctive discourse of empire in the final quarter of the nineteenth century, paying particular attention to the role of the special correspondent in that process. 

My current research project, "Minds on the Edge: Mental Health and Masculinity at the Frontiers of Empire", explores the ways in which ideas about masculinity and mental health intersect with imperial ideology. The project aims to contextualise the numerous instances in fiction of imperial agents experiencing stress, breakdown or madness.

I have published on writers and journalists including Henry Rider Haggard, Joseph Conrad, G.A. Henty, Rudyard Kipling, George Warrington Steevens, W.T. Stead, Archibald Forbes and Winston Churchill. Other research interests include the journalism of the First World War and the discipline of Literary Journalism.

Teaching interests

My main teaching interests are in nineteenth-century literature and popular culture, the history and culture of empires and war writing. At the OU I currently teach AA100 (The Arts Past and Present), A326 (Empire, 1492-1975) and EA300 (Children's Literature).

In addition, I have taught A207 (Enlightenment to Romanticism) at the OU and have taught and/or led modules on topics including eighteenth-century literature, Gothic fiction, Romanticism, Victorian literature & culture, Modernism, war writing and critical theory.

Externally funded projects

Mediating the First World War: Readers and War Reporting
RoleStart dateEnd dateFunding source
Lead31 Jul 202230 Jul 2024BRITAC British Academy;LEVERHULME The Leverhulme Trust

In his 1917 poem “Fight to a Finish”, Siegfried Sassoon fantasises about returning troops charging journalists with fixed bayonets on the streets of London. The image of war correspondents of the First World War as the enemies of the fighting soldiers has become fixed in popular culture and in scholarship. Philip Knightley, author of the most comprehensive history of war correspondence currently in print, accuses the war correspondents of propagating "deliberate lies" and "discrediting their craft". This project re-examines this view of British war correspondents during the conflict by focusing on the responses of readers to reporting on the war. Significant archival deposits covering readers' experiences are readily accessible in London, as well as online. This approach promises to fill a significant gap in existing scholarship on war correspondence.

Publications

[Book Review] Chris Dubbs, An Unladylike Profession: American Women War Correspondents in World War I (2023)
Griffiths, Andrew
First World War Studies, 14(2-3) (pp. 396-398)

Masculinity, Madness and Empire in Kipling’s ‘Thrown Away’ and ‘The Madness of Private Ortheris’ (2021-10)
Griffiths, Andrew
Journal of Victorian Culture, 26(4) (pp. 552-567)

Seeking the Sources of Heart of Darkness: the African Narratives of late-Victorian Explorers and Journalists (2018)
Griffiths, Andrew
Continents manuscrits(11)

Literary Journalism and Empire: George Warrington Steevens in Africa, 1898–1900 (2017)
Griffiths, Andrew
Literary Journalism Studies, 9(1) (pp. 60-81)

Winston Churchill, the Morning Post and the End of the Imperial Romance (2013)
Griffiths, Andrew
Victorian Periodicals Review, 46(2) (pp. 163-183)

The New Journalism, the New Imperialism and the Fiction of Empire, 1870-1900 (2015-08)
Griffiths, Andrew
Palgrave Studies in the History of the Media
ISBN : 9781137454362 | Publisher : Palgrave Macmillan | Published : London

25. The Anglo-Zulu War in the Friend of India: Mediation, Meaning and Authority (2024)
Griffiths, Andrew
In: Finkelstein, David; Johnson, David and Davis, Caroline eds. Edinburgh Companion to Colonial Periodicals. Edinburgh Companions to Literature and the Humanities (pp. 390-403)
ISBN : 9781399500647 | Publisher : Edinburgh University Press | Published : Edinburgh, UK

War Correspondents (2023-02-15)
Griffiths, Andrew
In: Demoor, Marysa; Van Dijck, Cedric and Van Puymbroek, Birgit eds. The Edinburgh Companion to First World War Periodicals. Edinburgh Companions to Literature and the Humanities (pp. 175-189)
ISBN : 9781474494724 | Publisher : Edinburgh University Press | Published : Edinburgh

Edmund O'Donovan in Asia and Africa: Literary Journalism at the Edge of Empire (2023)
Griffiths, Andrew
In: Bak, John S. and Reynolds, Bill eds. The Routledge Companion to World Literary Journalism (pp. 239-252)
Publisher : Routledge | Published : Oxon, UK and New York, USA

An Anglo-American Encounter in Africa: Henry M. Stanley in Abyssinia, 1868 (2019-02-18)
Griffiths, Andrew
In: Griffiths, Andrew; Alves, Audrey and Trindade, Alice eds. Literary Journalism and Africa's Wars: Colonial, Decolonial and Postcolonial Perspectives. ReportAGES
ISBN : 9782814305243 | Publisher : Presses Universitaires de Nancy | Published : Nancy, France

Strategic Fictions? John Buchan, The Times and the Ypres Salient (2017-01-09)
Griffiths, Andrew
In: Griffiths, Andrew; Prieto, Sara and Zehle, Soenke eds. Literary Journalism and World War I: Marginal Voices. ReportAGES (pp. 55-75)
ISBN : 9782814302822 | Publisher : Presses Universitaires de Nancy | Published : Nancy, France

Literary Journalism and Africa's Wars: Colonial, Decolonial and Postcolonial Perspectives (2018)
Griffiths, Andrew; Alves, Audrey and Trindade, Alice eds.
ReportAGES
ISBN : 9782814305243 | Publisher : Presses Universitaires de Nancy | Published : Nancy, France

Literary Journalism and World War I: Marginal Voices (2017)
Griffiths, Andrew; Prieto, Sara and Zehle, Soenke eds.
ReportAGES
ISBN : 9782814302822 | Publisher : Presses Universitaires de Nancy | Published : Nancy, France