Overview

Alexandra Gushurst-Moore is Research Associate of "The Art of Fiction" project, where she is investigating collaborative art making and the creative process in the context of mid to late-Victorian fantasy production.

She is developing two books from the research conducted towards her PhD, "The Making of Modern Fantasy in the Visual Arts of England, c. 1850-1920". The first is a thematic survey of fantasy art making in the late Victorian period, which situates an exploration of the formal elements of the fantasy mode in the context of late Victorian British artists' relationships. The second is a creative history of the development of modern fantasy between the 1830s and 1930s, written in the style of a Norse saga.

Her primary area of research is fantasy as a visual mode. Other research interests include modern fantasy art and literature, Pre-Raphaelite legacies, interdisciplinary literature and art studies, speculative futures, worldbuilding and worldmaking, embodied research, and art making as method.

Beyond her research, she has professional experience of and interest in British educational policy, the strategy and operation of HEIs, and the facilitation of inclusive and supportive research cultures.

Back to top

Research

My research interests include modern fantasy art and literature, Pre-Raphaelite legacies, interdisciplinary literature and art studies, speculative futures, worldbuilding and worldmaking, embodied research, and art making as method.

Research collaborations

Research Associate of The Art of Fiction project at the University of Exeter, conducted in partnership with MAKE Southwest and Killerton House. 

Coordinator of Cambridge Visual Culture, a collaborative research network that spans the work of the Fitzwilliam Museum, Kettle's Yard, and the University of Cambridge's Department of History of Art. 

Associate of Cambridge Digital Humanities, where she supervises digital humanities projects including on game studies and collections archives. 

Member of the British Art Network and former co-convenor of the Paul Mellon Centre's Early Career Research Network.

Convenor of the "Supernatural in Visual Culture" research group.

Former project lead of the "Visual Talking Points" strand of the University of York's Creative Encounters project.

Back to top

Publications

_{Copyright Notice: Any articles made available for download are for personal use only. Any other use requires prior permission of the author and the copyright holder.}

2025

• Gushurst-Moore A. (2025) Fantasy Worldbuilding in Victorian Art: Composition and Critique, University Of Amsterdam, Brill.

Back to top

Biography

Alexandra Gushurst-Moore's doctoral thesis, titled "The Making of Modern Fantasy in the Visual Arts of England, c. 1850-1920", was supervised by Professor Elizabeth Prettejohn at the University of York; she holds an MA(Hons) from the University of Edinburgh and an MSt from the University of Oxford.

Back to top