Kevin A. Morrison is an award-winning scholar, academic leader, and filmmaker whose work bridges literary studies, media, and global humanities. An internationalist and institution builder, he has held academic appointments in the United States, Singapore, and China, and currently serves as Mingde Distinguished Professor of British Literature and Humanities at Henan University, where he directs the Institute for World Literature.

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His research examines the global circulation of narrative across media, from nineteenth-century print culture to contemporary serial storytelling. Bringing together literary studies, material culture, and media history, he explores how forms of storytelling—novels, periodicals, television, and film—shape and are shaped by political, social, and spatial contexts. His four monographs include the MLA-award winning Victorian Liberalism and Material Culture, and The Provincial Fiction of Mitford, Gaskell, and Eliot, which reconsiders the relationships among place, form, and literary history. His broader body of work spans topics such as liberalism and everyday life, domestic and imperial culture, and the relationship between humans, environments, and nonhuman life.

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A committed intellectual community builder, Kevin is a founder and president of the Society for Global Nineteenth-Century Studies (SGNCS), a geographically and disciplinarily diverse network of scholars who share an interest in the world’s connectedness between 1750 and 1914. He edits the society’s journal, Global Nineteenth-Century Studies, and co-edits its book series, Studies in the Global Nineteenth Century with Liverpool University Press. His editorial leadership extends across continents and includes multiple journals and book series in nineteenth-century studies, cultural history, and the humanities, reflecting a sustained investment in shaping the direction of the field.

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Kevin has secured more than $620,000 USD in competitive research funding from universities, research libraries, foundations, and government bodies, including the American Philosophical Society, the New York Public Library, the California Institute of Technology Archives, the Ministry of Science and Technology of the People's Republic of China, and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. His work has been recognized through election to the Royal Asiatic Society, the Royal Society of Arts, and the Royal Historical Society, and through visiting appointments such as the Lynn Wood Neag Distinguished Visiting Professorship at the University of Connecticut and a visiting fellowship at the National University of Singapore.

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His academic leadership includes directing research institutes, developing interdisciplinary programs, and organizing major international conferences and symposia across North America, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. He is particularly committed to building globally connected humanities programs that integrate research, teaching, and public-facing engagement.

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Alongside his academic work, Kevin is an advocate for independent filmmaking and creative practice as a form of research and pedagogy. He has written and produced several short films screened internationally, and recently wrote and directed the feature film Hucksters, which included Naomi Grossman (“American Horror Story”), Melissa Chambers (“Dark Winds”), and Brendan Fehr (“Roswell”) as principal cast members. His creative work reflects a broader interest in narrative form, seriality, and the relationship among storytelling, institutions, and lived experience.

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An award-winning teacher and Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (Advance HE), Kevin has also contributed extensively to the scholarship of teaching and learning. His work in this area includes a monograph, edited collections (Victorian Culture and Experiential Learning; Making the Grade), and articles on experiential learning, writing pedagogy, and interdisciplinary education. Across his research, leadership, and creative work, he is committed to developing integrative approaches to the humanities that connect scholarship with practice, and the university with wider cultural and public spheres.​