Where: No 70 Oxford St, Manchester, M1 5NH

Tickets: £10 - Book tickets here

The third annual conference of the Gothic Manchester Festival adopts the theme ‘What Lies Beneath?’ – at which speakers will present their work on the gothic’s darkest and most hidden aspects. Presentations include work on Lovecraftian Gothic and the weird, the dark dimensions of the human unconscious, the socially repressed, oppressed and occluded, the subterranean and the infernal, old gods and new monsters.

Participants range from PhD students and early career researchers to internationally recognised specialists in the field. All are committed to presenting exciting and accessible papers of interest to anyone who wants to know more about the horrors that lurk beneath the surface of the everyday world and manifest themselves in stories and novels, films, television programmes and other aspects of gothic culture.

No specialist knowledge is required but dark proclivities are absolutely essential.

Schedule for the day:

9.00-9.45: Registration

09.45-10.00: Welcome and Introductions

10.00-11.30: Panel One: Sickness and Death

Dr Claire Nally (University of Northumbria): ‘Cross Bones Graveyard: Writing, Memory and Submerged Sites of Mourning.’
Dr Tracy Fahey (Limerick School of Art & Design, LIT, Ireland): ‘What Lies Beneath: Unveiling Occluded Patient Narratives.’
Siobhan Maguire-Broad aka Morticia (Leeds College of Art): ‘That’s About The Bones Of It’

11.30-12.00: Coffee (own arrangements)

12.00-1.20: Panel Two: The Spiritual and the Material

Dr Simon Marsden, (University of Liverpool): ‘Holy Ghosts: Spectres of the Sacred in Contemporary Gothic Fictions.’
Dr Lorna Piatti-Farnell (Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand): ‘It Eats You From Within and Without: Food and (Cultural) Horror in Film.’
Jon Greenaway (Manchester Metropolitan University): ‘In Breaking, Immanence and the Divine, Reading HP Lovecraft Theologically.’

1.20-2.20: Lunch (own arrangements)

2.20-4.00: Panel Three: Beneath the Text

Dr Bill Hughes (Independent Scholar): ‘Desire Beneath the Darkness: The Illumination of the Gothic by Paranormal Romance.’
Sarah Cleary (Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland): ‘“Gothicising The Rocky Horror Picture Show from its (Frilly) Bottom Up”
Dr Anna Powell (Manchester Metropolitan University): ‘Going Underground: the Substrata of Jan Svankmajer’s Poe Films.’
Dr. Susan Chaplin (Leeds Metropolitan University): ‘Burning Down the House’: Blood, Brands and Sacred Space in Alan Ball’s True Blood.’

4.00-4.30: Comfort Break

4.30-5.50: Panel Four: The Weird

Dr Sarah A. Winter (University of Northumbria): ‘The Gothic Theatre World: Monsters, Ghosts and Horrors on the Long Nineteenth-Century Stage and Beyond.’
Richard Gough Thomas (Manchester Metropolitan University): ‘The Lovecraft Circle and the Ruin of Empires – Decline and Fall in Weird Fiction.’
Morag Rose (University of Sheffield): ‘“There’s something in the water!”: A Psychogeographical exploration of Manchester Canals.’

6.00-7.00: Closing Remarks & Launch of the Dark Arts journal. Refreshments and wine reception.

This conference event will also feature:
Shabby Cheek Emporium
Lovecraft in Pop Culture display
Manchester University Press Bookstall

Manchester Centre for Gothic Studies are pleased to offer the following accommodation discounts for Festival attendees:

Jurys Inn Manchester:
15% guaranteed discount from published rates. Call the reservations team and quote Manchester Metropolitan Uni to get this discount – 0161 953 8888 option 1

Hatters Hostels (Newton Street, Northern Quarter):
£26.00 per person per night on Friday 23rd October & Saturday 24th October in dorms rooms only
£15.00 per person per night on Sunday 25th October in dorm rooms only
(2 night minimum restriction on a Friday & Saturday nigh