Ph.D. Students

Johnny Murray grew up in the rural wilds of central New York, and has spent time living in Australia, Southeast Asia, Eastern Europe, and the UK, as well as cities and small towns across the US, including Brooklyn, Providence, and Seattle. He has worked as an itinerant housepainter, a night watchperson, a caterer, a video store clerk, a laundromat attendant, a live-in groundskeeper for a dilapidated mansion and its adjoining estate, a letterpress printer, a teacher, an admin at a large philanthropic organization, a library assistant, and a book review editor. He is the co-founder of Unlock the Clockcase, a small nonprofit press.

Currently, Johnny is pursuing a PhD in English literature at Boston College. He has published chapters in the edited collections The American Weird: Concept and Medium (2021) and Horror Literature from Gothic to Post-Modern: Critical Essays (2020), and has presented papers at conferences in Dublin, Ireland, Manchester, England, Göttingen, Germany, and Providence, RI.

In addition to his scholarly work, Johnny is the author of a poetry chapbook, Ghost Calling (2007), co-author and co-designer of an artists’ book, An Abecedarian (2007), and author of a serialized novel-in-progress, Ripponlea (2021– ).

Johnny holds an MA in English from Manchester Metropolitan University, where he graduated with distinction and earned the Head of Department’s Prize for Outstanding Achievement. He holds a BA in Philosophy from Vassar College.