William Delisle Hay’s The Doom of the Great City (1880) imagines the destruction of London as a result of human-induced environmental devastation, the threat of which is becoming increasingly visible today. This urban apocalypse narrative connects to pressing cultural discussions on global warming, modern life in cities, public health, and the interconnectivity of human life on earth. This first critical edition of Hay’s novella makes available his account of one man’s tale of survival amidst a toxic fog—a survival that includes his relocation to Maoriland in New Zealand. The editors foreground the relevance of the story to present and future pandemics, the persistence of environmental disasters, and the global population’s ongoing migration to cities. They place the narrative in dialogue with nineteenth-century concerns about climate change, pollution, natural resources, health care, empire, and (sub)urbanization that have remained significant challenges as we come to terms with the lasting impacts of the Anthropocene in the twenty-first century.  

Sarita Jayanty Mizin is an associate professor of English and affiliate in Race, Ethnicity, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at the University of Wisconsin, Eau Claire. She directs the The Avin Intersectional Women’s Center there. Together with Michael Kramp she has edited two critical editions of nineteenth-century post-apocalyptic texts, After London (Clemson UP) and The Doom of the Great City (West Virginia UP). Her latest project, Feminism Against Feminists, analyzes the ways political leaders repurpose the iconicity of nineteenth-century Women of Color activists to claim feminism for the state in direct opposition to some of the today’s most visible feminist activists.

Michael Kramp is a scholar of nineteenth-century British literature and culture, masculinity, and critical theory. As a faculty member at Lehigh University, He is a Professor of English and holds appointments in Film and Documentary Studies and the Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Programs.

His scholarship is focused in three main areas: Jane Austen, Masculinity Studies, and Critical Theory. In recent years, he has also engaged in textual editing, Anthropocene Studies, and Health Humanities as part of his work in the Mothers of Sierra Leone Global Social Impact Fellowship.

He is the author of Disciplining Love: Austen and the Modern Man (The Ohio State University Press: 2007) and Patriarchy’s Creative Resilience: Late Victorian Speculative Fiction (Routledge: 2024). He has edited and introduced Jane Austen and Masculinity (Bucknell University Press: 2017, 2024) and Jane Austen and Critical Theory (Routeldge: 2021). With Sarita Jayanty Mizin, He has also co-edited and introduced the first critical edition of William Delisle Hay’s The Doom of the Great City (West Virginia University Press: 2025) and a new edition of Richard Jefferies’s After London; Or, Wild England (Clemson University Press, 2024).

He is currently engaged in a multi-year public humanities research project, Jane Austen and the Future of the Humanities, that leverages that enduring popularity of Austen to engage diverse public audiences about the efficacy of the humanities. This project involves a podcast, a documentary film, and a public-facing monograph.

Please join us to hear Michael and Sarita discuss their edited work, The Doom of the Great City on November 19th at 4:00pm in Maginnes 290!

Presented by the Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies Program, the English Department, and the Humanities Center.

RSVP: https://forms.gle/Z4V6znfVzpckBkDK7