Dr. Eleanor Johnson

Eleanor Johnson, Ph.D., is a Professor of English and Comparative Literature and Director of the Institute for Religion, Culture, and Public Life at Columbia University, where she teaches The History of Horror, one of the school’s largest humanities lectures and one of Columbia’s most popular undergraduate classes. Dr. Johnson’s research draws on the gothic traditions of medieval prose, poetry, and drama, using them as a lens to study the intersection of horror and feminism in literary and filmic texts. She has published three books, two collections of poetry, and over a dozen articles and essays. Last year, Dr. Johnson published a four-part essay series on Horror films in American culture at Public Books. She is also the Poetry Section editor at Public Books and the creator of the Substack, Eleanor’s Horrors. Dr. Johnson received her doctorate in English and Medieval Studies from the University of California, Berkeley, and her B.A. in English from Yale. She lives in New York City.

SCREAM WITH ME publishes in Fall 2025.