Farah Mendlesohn

Farah Mendlesohn was Professor and Head of Department of English and Media at Anglia Ruskin University from 2012-2017, then Associate Dean of Recruitment at Staffordshire University. She is currently an Associate Fellow of The Anglia Ruskin Centre for Science Fiction and Fantasy

She has supervised seven PhD students to completion (five now have academic positions) and specialises in supporting students (and staff) with access issues. Since 1995 she has organised or been part of the organising team of twenty conferences and conventions. She served as President of the International Association of the Fantastic in the Arts from 2008-2011 and chair of the Science Fiction Foundation, 2004-2007.

As a Head of Department she introduced a range of training, in research mentorship event management, external engagement, student satisfaction, meeting management, listening skills, decision making and delegation.

Farah Mendlesohn’s acclaimed work includes Rhetorics of Fantasy (2009), The Inter-galactic Playground: A Critical Study of Children’s and Teens’ Science Fiction (McFarland) and Diana Wynne Jones: The Fantastic Tradition and Children’s Literature (Routledge).

Children’s Fantasy Literature: An Introduction, which she wrote with her long time colleague Professor Michael M. Levy won the World Fantasy Award in 2017.  She won a Hugo with Edward James in 2005 for The Cambridge Companion to Science Fiction.

Her first novel, a regency romance titled Spring Flowering, came out in November 2017.

Farah Mendlesohn is currently working on a book on children’s literature, memory and the English Civil War for Palgrave.