Dr Raphael Hoermann
Raphael came to UCLan as Marie Curie Intra-European Fellow and is a member of the Institute for Black Atlantic Research (IBAR) and the Research Centre on Migration, Diaspora and Exile (MIDEX). He works on North and Black Atlantic narratives of slavery, slave resistance and Black Atlantic radicalism. He has been engaged in a major research project on Gothic narratives of the Haitian Revolution with a monograph in progress. He teaches across a range of subjects in literature and culture.
Raphael has published widely in the fields of Black Atlantic and Transatlantic Studies, Haitian Revolutionary Studies and nineteenth-century German and English Literature and Culture. His monograph Writing the Revolution: German and English Radical Literature, 1819 to 1848/49 (2011) comparatively investigates the evolving revolutionary discourse in this period. More recently, he has published on the Haitian Gothic, the horror trope of the zombie and the Haitian Revolution, and the transatlantic figure of the Black Jacobins (see publications). He teaches widely on BA programmes involving literature as well as on the school’s foundation programme. Particular areas of expertise in teaching are African American literature and culture (including music), the discourses of transatlantic slavery and postcolonial literature and culture, including Black German writing.
Edinburgh and was awarded a PhD in Comparative Literature from Glasgow University in 2008. Before coming to UCLan as Marie Curie Intra-European Fellow to work with Prof. Alan Rice, he held two positions as a postdoctoral researcher in collaborative doctoral research groups at Rostock and Giessen University. Apart from advancing his own research, he organised workshops and trained and informally supervised PhD students. Raphael has been invited internationally to present his research, including in Germany (Hannover University, Merz Akademie and Württemberg Art Association, Stuttgart), Sweden (Uppsala University) and Denmark (Aarhus University). He has also given invited public lectures on the nineteenth-century Black Atlantic radical Robert Wedderburn at the International Slavery Museum (ISM) in Liverpool and to the Preston Black History Group and on Black Atlantic people in Britain prior to the Windrush Generation as part of Refugee Week (2019). Raphael is a seasoned conference organiser and convener. Among the most high-profile events, he has convened was the UK largest international conference on the Haitian Revolution and its repercussions: “After Revolution: Versions and Re-Visions of Haiti” (UCLan, 2015). As founding member of the Institute for Black Atlantic Research (IBAR), Raphael’s research engages with transatlantic narratives of the Haitian Revolution and Black Atlantic radicalism. Raphael is very interested to supervise research students working in the fields of Black Atlantic Studies, Haitian Revolutionary Studies and Black German literature and culture.
- PhD Comparative Literature, Glasgow University, 2008
- MA (Magister Artium) German and English & American Literature, Constance University, 2001
- Black Atlantic Studies
- Haitian Revolutionary Studies
- Black Atlantic Radicalism
- Histories, cultures and legacies of transatlantic slavery
- Cultures and histories of resistance of the enslaved
- Haitian revolution and Haitian history
- Black British and European culture and history
- Caribbean and African American literature
Since 2008, Raphael has been involved in a project researching Gothic narratives of the Haitian Revolution (1791-1804). As the only successful slave revolution in history, it has sent long-lasting shockwaves across the Atlantic. It challenged not merely slavery and colonialism but also white supremacy. Long silenced and trivialised in North Atlantic, it has been now been reappraised as central to the formation of a transatlantic Enlightenment and alternative modernity. As the monograph resulting from this project will contend, the challenges that the revolution have been posed have often been contained by demonising it with the help of the Gothic mode. However, this study contends, these numerous attempts in North Atlantic discourse have been countered by radical appropriations of the Gothic by Black Atlantic writers. Raphael is also interested in branching out into intersections of the Black Atlantic, especially in relation to the Haitian Revolution and Black German literature and culture. He has acted as peer-reviewer for several journals, including Francosphère, Open Cultural Studies and The International History Review. He is the lead for research stream Black Atlantic Diaspora at the UCLan Research Centre of Migration, Diaspora and Exile (MIDEX).
Use the links below to view their profiles:
- Institute for Black Atlantic Research (IBAR)
- UCLan Research Centre for Migration, Exile and Diaspora (MIDEX)
- "A Very Hell of Horrors”: Politics of the Haitian Gothic in Transatlantic Narratives of the Haitian Revolution, (2008)
- European Commission, 2014
- Marie Curie Intra-European Fellow Grant Agreement Number: PIEF-GA-2013-629486
- "After Revolution: Versions and Re-Visions of Haiti” (co-convener), 2015
Telephone:+44 (0)1772893122
Email: Email:Dr Raphael Hoermann
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