Publications

Books
  • Craps, Stef. Trauma. New Critical Idiom. Under contract with Routledge.
  • Craps, Stef. Postcolonial Witnessing: The Trauma of Empire, the Empire of Trauma. Under contract with Palgrave Macmillan.
  • Craps, Stef. Trauma and Ethics in the Novels of Graham Swift: No Short-Cuts to Salvation. Brighton/Portland: Sussex Academic Press, 2005. ISBN: 1-84519-004-1. 230 pp. Published with the support of the Belgian University Foundation. Shortlisted for the 2006 ESSE Book Award.

    Endorsements and reviews:
    This excellent book is a detailed, carefully balanced and well-informed study of this major contemporary writer. Most impressively, it has a strong grasp of both the complex currents of Swift’s fiction and of current debates in literary studies and theory over issues of trauma and ethics. Indeed, Stef Craps’ luminous and detailed study, while more than this, could be seen as a case study for the effectiveness of these ideas for understanding a major contemporary writer. Certainly, it will shape how Swift’s writing is understood.Robert Eaglestone, Royal Holloway, University of London
    This book not only offers brilliant analyses of Swift’s novels, it also makes a significant impact on trauma studies. Craps argues that traumatic histories are the central themes in Swift’s literary oeuvre. But more importantly, he demonstrates that Swift’s own medium - storytelling - is crucial in working through trauma.Ernst van Alphen, University of Leiden / University of California, Berkeley
    Working across the fields of ethical criticism and trauma theory, this volume offers a detailed and innovative study of the fiction of Graham Swift, providing perceptive readings of all his major novels. . . . overall, this is a clearly argued, intelligent and engaging study, which makes valuable contributions both to the field of trauma studies and to Swift criticism.Anne Whitehead, English Studies (88.6 (2007): 737-38)
    Understatements have certainly become Swift’s speciality, resounding throughout his fictions of ethical consequence illuminated by Stef Craps in this valuable new study. Craps’s approach is far from pedestrian. Within its single-author format, what makes this book distinctive is that it proceeds chronologically while working hard to focus its thematic coverage, distinguishing itself from a standard text-by-text exposition.David James, Textual Practice (20.2 (2006): 355-61)
    [This book] deserves to be widely known and discussed among those interested in Swift’s novels. . . . The virtues of Craps’s study are considerable. These include close and subtle argument, a consistent vision of what he wants to say, and a clarity of exposition. In addition, Craps puts Swift’s work in an interesting and complex European context. . . . In short, Trauma and Ethics in the Novels of Graham Swift is an excellent study that will play an important role in Swift studies for a long time.David Malcolm, The European English Messenger (14.2 (2005): 88-89)
Edited volumes
  • Craps, Stef, and Michael Rothberg, eds. Transcultural Negotiations of Holocaust Memory. Spec. issue of Criticism: A Quarterly for Literature and the Arts 53.4 (2011). 121 pp. Available through Project MUSE. With essays by Stef Craps and Gert Buelens, Sarah De Mul, Andreas Huyssen, Michael Rothberg, and Pieter Vermeulen; and reviews by Brett Ashley Kaplan, A. Dirk Moses, and Max Silverman.
  • Craps, Stef, and Gert Buelens, eds. Postcolonial Trauma Novels. Spec. double issue of Studies in the Novel 40.1-2 (2008). 237 pp. Available through Project MUSE. With essays by Victoria Burrows, Stef Craps, Robert Eaglestone, Shane Graham, Rosanne Kennedy, Ana Miller, Laura Murphy, Mairi Neeves, Amy Novak, Petar Ramadanovic, Michael Rothberg, Nancy Van Styvendale, and Anne Whitehead.
  • Craps, Stef. Editorial assistant for Jaarboek voor Literatuurwetenschap 1: Onverwerkt Europa (2001).
Journal articles
Book chapters
  • Craps, Stef. "Beyond Eurocentrism: Trauma Theory in the Global Age." The Future of Trauma Theory: Contemporary Literary Criticism. Ed. Gert Buelens, Sam Durrant, and Robert Eaglestone. London: Routledge, 2012. 10,500 words. [forthcoming]
  • Craps, Stef. “Jewish/Postcolonial Diasporas in the Work of Caryl Phillips.” Metaphor and Diaspora in Contemporary Writing. Ed. Jonathan P. A. Sell. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011. 7,500 words. [forthcoming]
  • Craps, Stef. "Linking Legacies of Loss: Traumatic Histories and Cross-Cultural Empathy in Caryl Phillips's Higher Ground and The Nature of Blood." Caryl Phillips: Writing in the Key of Life. Ed. Bénédicte Ledent and Daria Tunca. Cross/Cultures. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2011. 7,500 words. [forthcoming]
  • Craps, Stef. “Virginia Woolf: ‘Kew Gardens’ and ‘The Legacy.’” A Companion to the British and Irish Short Story. Ed. Cheryl Alexander Malcolm and David Malcolm. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2008. 193-201.
  • Craps, Stef. "How to Do Things with Gender: Transgenderism in Virginia Woolf's Orlando." Image into Identity: Constructing and Assigning Identity in a Culture of Modernity. Ed. Michael Wintle. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2006. 175-90.
  • Craps, Stef. "Tussen trauma en verbeelding: De documentaire 9/11 van de gebroeders Naudet." Stof en as: De neerslag van 11 september in kunst en populaire cultuur. Ed. Liedeke Plate and Anneke Smelik. Amsterdam: Van Gennep / De Balie, 2006. 87-102.
  • Craps, Stef. "Graham Swift." Engelstalige Literatuur na 1945, Deel 1: Proza - De Britse Eilanden. Ed. Elke D'hoker and Ortwin de Graef. Leuven: Peeters, 2004. 211-25.
Reviews
  • Craps, Stef. Rev. of Shadows of Ethics: Criticism and the Just Society, by Geoffrey Galt Harpham. English Studies: A Journal of English Language and Literature 82.6 (2001): 572-74.
  • Craps, Stef. "De dromenmeesteres." Rev. of The Dream Mistress, by Jenny Diski. Nieuw Wereldtijdschrift 14.2 (1997): 76-79.
  • Craps, Stef. "Engelse francofilie." Rev. of Cross Channel and Letters from London 1990-1995, by Julian Barnes. Nieuw Wereldtijdschrift 14.2 (1997): 66-67.
  • Craps, Stef. "Asbestemming." Rev. of Last Orders, by Graham Swift. Nieuw Wereldtijdschrift 13.5 (1996): 78-80.
Conference proceedings
In preparation
  • Craps, Stef. “Holocaust Literature: Comparative Perspectives.” A Companion to Holocaust Literature. Ed. Jenni Adams. Continuum.
  • Craps, Stef. “Holocaust Memory and the Critique of Violence in Caryl Churchill’s Seven Jewish Children: A Play for Gaza.” The Future of Testimony. Ed. Antony Rowland and Jane Kilby.
  • Smethurst, Toby, and Stef Craps. “Phantasms of War and Empire in Pat Barker’s The Ghost Road.”