Joel Childers

Joel Childers is a Lecturer in the Department of English at the University of California, Berkeley. He specializes in 18th- and 19th-century British literature, critical theory, and poetry. His research explores the intersections of literary criticism, colonialism, and social thought. Previously, he taught at Mount Tamalpais College (formerly San Quentin Prison’s Prison University Project) and Johns Hopkins University, where he earned his Ph.D. in 2021.

Childers is completing a book, The Historical Poem: On the Lives and Afterlives of Romantic Literary Criticism (Stanford UP, 2026), examining how literary criticism informed anthropological and sociological thought about colonialism. A second project, Archaism: Media and the Performance of History, investigates the use of archaic forms in art to challenge norms of historical belonging.

He teaches courses such as Romanticism and the British New Left and Genres of Empire, emphasizing cross-period thinking. His publications address colonial rule in British India, Romantic-era criticism, and existential themes in Proust and Sartre. Office hours are by appointment, and he can be reached at jmchilders@berkeley.edu or 478 Wheeler Hall.