Paul Crawford (academic)


Paul Crawford FRSA, FAcSS, FRSPH is an English academic and writer.

Academic career

Crawford received a first-class honours degree in English language and literature in 1994 before completing his PhD at The University of Birmingham in 1999. His thesis on the novelist William Golding was funded by the British Academy. Crawford joined The University of Nottingham in 2001 and led the development of a new research unit, the Health Language Research Group. A specialist in trans-disciplinary research related to healthcare, he went on to pioneer the new field of Health Humanities, becoming the first and only Professor of Health Humanities worldwide in 2008. He is currently Director of the Centre for Social Futures, Institute of Mental Health. He has held over £6,000,000 in research grants from the Arts and Humanities Research Council, Economic and Social Research Council and The Leverhulme Trust.

Writings

Crawford has written or co-written twelve books. His first book, Communicating Care: The Language of Nursing was the first volume worldwide on non-medical discourse in healthcare. His second book was the novel, Nothing Purple, Nothing Black, optioned for film by British film producer, Jack Emery. His third book was a single-author monograph, Politics and History in William Golding. This major, critical work was reviewed in The Times Literary Supplement and a key chapter on ‘Literature of Atrocity’ anthologized in Bloom’s Guides to Lord of the Flies. It also led to Crawford writing the entry for Golding in The Oxford Encyclopedia of British Literature. His fourth book, Evidence Based Research: Dilemmas and Debates in Healthcare was Highly Commended in the British Medical Association Book Competition for 2004. His fifth book, Storytelling in Therapy explores the use of short stories in Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. His sixth book, Communication in Clinical Settings offers a new model for health communication. His seventh book, Evidence-based Health Communication advances the case for health communication research and data-driven learning. His eighth book is Madness in Post-1945 British and American Fiction. His ninth book, Health Humanities, builds on Crawford's seminal paper that first defined the field in 2010.. His tenth book, Humiliation: Mental Health and Public Shame, shows how humiliation can provoke violence and aggression. His eleventh book, The Routledge Companion to Health Humanities, features 65 chapters from 83 scholars worldwide and advances new perspectives on theories and applications in this field. His twelfth book, Florence Nightingale at Home, accounts for how the material and conceptual notions of domestic life impacted on this great Victorian woman's ideas and work. Crawford is also Commissioning Editor for the Arts for Health Series and Editor-in-Chief for The Encyclopedia of Health Humanities.

Radio

Crawford has appeared on major radio shows, such as the Today programme and Woman's Hour on BBC Radio 4, to discuss issues related to mental health, religion, and creative writing.