Saturday, 26 October 2019 at 9:00 am – Saturday, 26 October 2019 at 6:00 pm

Gothic Manchester Festival Conference 2019 - ‘Gothic Times.’

Date: Saturday 26 October 2019

Time: Conference 8.50am - 4.40pm; Wine reception 4.40pm - 5.30pm

Location: Business School, Manchester Metropolitan University

Tickets: £10 – Available here

Organised by Dr Linnie Blake

In the opening decades of the twenty-first century, with Trump in the White House and Brexit on the horizon, Angela Carter’s famous assertion of 1974 that ‘we live in Gothic times’ has never been more apt. But from the eighteenth century onwards, the Gothic mode has routinely placed the present moment under scrutiny, exploring the terrors of the age whilst calling into question the comforting fantasies upon which the established order rests. In this, the Gothic text might be seen to offer a culturally and politically engaged exploration of the historic period in which each text was produced, interrogating the contemporary present even as it calls into question standard historical narratives about the past.

This one-day conference will present 20-minute talks on all aspects of Gothic Times. These may focus on any aspect of Gothic culture – literature, film, television, music, graphic novels, games, Goth subcultures, and more. Topics may include, but are certainly not limited to:

• The Gothic and History / Gothic Histories
• The Gothic as social and political critique
• Gothic narratives in (and out of) time
• Gothic temporalities – time in the Gothic text
• Gothic of the present moment: Trump and Brexit
• Projecting the Future – Gothic/SF fusions

Conference Programme

8.50-9.20: Registration

9.30-10.30: Panel 1 (Plenary): Gothic Literatures

• Daisy Butcher: ‘Mummy Dearest: Nineteenth-Century Women Writers and the Mummy’
• Bill Hughes: ‘When Did Gothic Times begin? Vampiric Memory and Modernity in Holly Black’s The Coldest Girl in Coldtown’

10.30-11.00: Break

11.00-12.30:

Panel 2A: The Politics of the Times

• Carolyn Dougherty: 'Dealing with the Devil': Economic Interaction in the Gothic World’
• Yvette Harvey: ‘I Only Have Eyes for You’: Gothic Distortions in the 21st Century Surveillance State’
• Amy Carkeek: ‘Welcome to the Dreamhouse: A Suburban Gothic Certainty’

Panel 2B: Creatures

• Sam George: ‘Fairies, Fallen Angels and Spirits of the Dead: Edwardians Living in Gothic Times’
• James McCrea: ‘Skeletal Semiotics and the Neo-Gothic Ghosts of Contemporary Visual Culture’
• Bruno Ćurko: ‘Animals and Creatures in Moonspell Poetry’

12.30-1.30: Lunch (own arrangements)

1.30-3.00:

Panel 3A: Screen

• Ceri Higgins: ‘Coteries, Covens and Community: The Vampire as ‘Other’ in 21st Century TV Series.’
• Kerry Gorrill: ‘Laughing into the Abyss: Salad Fingers and Quentin Smirhes: the New Surrealist/Nihilist/Gothic Hybrid on YouTube.’
• Cat Finn: ‘Gothic Time(s): Forcing Children’s Cartoons to Grow Up Gothic.’

Panel 3B: Philosophy & Linguistics 

• Maartje Weenink: ‘5 - 2 = 3, 'king' - 'man' = ?: How Gothic Word Embeddings Change Throughout ‘Time’’
• Katherine Burn: '‘He is in Tune with the Permanent, Can Feel a Community’s Tensile Frame’: Inherited Shame in Max Porter’s Lanny’
• Anna Powell: ‘Double Time: Difference and Repetition in The Haunting (Robert Wise, 1960)’

3.00-3.30: Comfort Break

3.30-4.30:

Panel 4A: Multimedia Times

• Jenni Heeks: ‘The Cathedral of Notre Dame as Gothic Female: A Story of Fire, Victimhood and Imposition of Ownership’
• Jennifer Richards: ‘A Call to Arms: Rick Owens’s Babel Collection’

Panel 4B: Queer Gothic is Now!

• Paulina Palmer: ‘Contemporary Queer Historical Fiction – Representations of Spectrality and the Uncanny’
• Heather O. Petrocelli: ‘From Subtext to Text: Queered Gothic and Horror Film Through Time’

4.40: Closing Remarks

4.40pm - 5.30pm: Drinks reception

This event is part of the 7th annual Gothic Manchester Festival which is themed on 'Gothic Times'. This year the festival will span the whole of October with a whole range of events exploring the Gothic throughout time for you to get involved in.

The Manchester Gothic Festival is organised by the Manchester Centre for Gothic Studies at Manchester Metropolitan University. Find out more details and our full events schedule on our website: mmu.ac.uk/english/gothic-studies/gothic-manchester-festival/