Terry Gifford (born in 1946) is a British scholar at Bath Spa University[1] and poet. He is known for his role in developing British ecocriticism and his research interests include pastoral literary theory, ecofeminist analysis of D.H. Lawrence, John Muir, Ted Hughes, creative writing, poetry, and mountaineering. He has also published his own poetry collections.
He was the founding Director of the International Festival of Mountaineering Literature (1987–2008), Chair of the Ted Hughes Society (2015–2021), and Chair of the Mountain Heritage Trust (2007–2010). His book D. H. Lawrence, Ecofeminism and Nature (Routledge 2023) was put on the shortlist for the Association for Studies in Literature and it garnered the Environment prize in 2023 for Best Academic Monograph.
In 1967, he completed a Certificate of Education with a specialization in Education and English at Sheffield City College of Education. In 1973, he finished a B.Ed. Honours in English and Education at the University of Lancaster. In 1978, he completed an M.A. in English Literature at the University of Sheffield, for which thesis on the poetry of Ted Hughes. In 1993, he finished a Ph.D. in English Literature at the University of Lancaster, where he submitted a dissertation entitled “Beyond Pastoral Poetry: Notions of Nature in Poetry 1942–1992”.
From 1967 to 1970, he taught at Thornbridge Grammar School in Sheffield. After a secondment at BBC Radio in Sheffield, he began teaching at Rowlinson Comprehensive School, Sheffield, where he stayed on the faculty until 1979.
In 1979, he became Head of English at Yewlands Comprehensive School in Sheffield, while also lecturing at the University of Sheffield. In 1985, he became a Senior Lecturer in English at Bretton Hall College in Leeds University. In 2000, he became a Reader in Literature and Environment, at the University of Leeds, alongside an appointment as Director of Research at the School of Performance and Cultural Studies at the same university. From 2006 to 2011, he was visiting professor at the University of Chichester. In 2010, he was named a Senior Research Fellow at the Universidad de Alicante in Spain. In 2011, he became a Visiting Research Fellow at the Research Centre for Environmental Humanities at Bath Spa University.
A small sample of his major works, chosen to demonstrate the variety of his output, includes: