Conference Report: CoronaGothic (30th June 2020)

Dr. Joan's Book Bazaar

CoronaGothic

The new research cluster, University of Macau Gothic, hosted the timely and urgent CoronaGothic conference online on the 30th June 2020. The primary organisers and opening speakers were Professor Nick Groom and Professor William Hughes, and the following speakers were Professor Mariaconcetta Constantini, Dr Samantha George, Professor Stephen Hinchliffe, Professor Darryl Jones, Professor David Punter, and Professor Corinna Wagner. The conference was chaired by the University of Macau’s Professor Victoria Harrison. While the papers were brief, the topics covered were interdisciplinary and broad, covering everything from vampires to cremation; from Bill Gates to the Arctic; from Japanese mermaids to Nigella Lawson going feral.

This report will be comprised of a summary of the papers given. Verbatim quotes will be provided where possible. It will conclude with a brief summary of some of my own thoughts inspired by the ideas presented. Please note that, somewhat fittingly for a conference focused…

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Conference Report: CoronaGothic (30th June 2020)

Dr. Joan's Book Bazaar

CoronaGothic

The new research cluster, University of Macau Gothic, hosted the timely and urgent CoronaGothic conference online on the 30th June 2020. The primary organisers and opening speakers were Professor Nick Groom and Professor William Hughes, and the following speakers were Professor Mariaconcetta Constantini, Dr Samantha George, Professor Stephen Hinchliffe, Professor Darryl Jones, Professor David Punter, and Professor Corinna Wagner. The conference was chaired by the University of Macau’s Professor Victoria Harrison. While the papers were brief, the topics covered were interdisciplinary and broad, covering everything from vampires to cremation; from Bill Gates to the Arctic; from Japanese mermaids to Nigella Lawson going feral.

This report will be comprised of a summary of the papers given. Verbatim quotes will be provided where possible. It will conclude with a brief summary of some of my own thoughts inspired by the ideas presented. Please note that, somewhat fittingly for a conference focused…

View original post 2,211 more words

Reading Group: Call for Proposals, Autumn 2018

Really interesting. OGOM hopes to get involved!

Essex Myth

Myth Reading Group

Call for Proposals: Animals and Mythical Creatures

Domenico Zampieri, “Virgin and Unicorn”, c. 1604–05, fresco in Palazzo Farnese, Rome (public domain)

We are very pleased to announce that the theme for the Autumn Term is Animals and Mythical Creatures.

Taking our inspiration from “the zoo of mythologies, the zoo whose denizens are not lions but sphinxes and griffons and centaurs,” as Jorge Luis Borges described it in The Book of Imaginary Beings (p. 13), our Myth Reading Group will be exploring the presence of animals and creatures in myths.

Animals and imaginary creatures populate every civilization and culture in their written, visual or acoustic expression. Animals and beasts may carry religious or symbolic significance, such as the cat and the scarab beetle in Egyptian mythology, or may complete a heroic quest, such as the lion in The Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis. Mythical creatures…

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Review: Werewolves, Wolves and the Gothic

Excellent review by Scott that expertly analyses the stand out essays and themes of the collection.

The Dark Arts Journal

Werewolves, Wolves  and the Gothic

Edited by Robert McKay and John Miller. (Wales: University of Wales Press, 2017. 272 pages). ISBN 9781786831026

The eleven essays in McKay and Miller’s Werewolves, Wolves and the Gothic focus on a creature that has already been analysed critically in a number of texts in terms of the social anxieties it represents—i.e. class, race, ethnicity, sexuality, and gender. According to the introduction, Werewolves is meant to offer a new perspective through the lens of the “ecoGothic,” where werewolves and wolves are both regarded as “perpetrators” and “subjects” of violence as a consequence of past extinction and current rewilding efforts (5). As a centralizing idea, it’s a lot to bite off, even for a “my-what-big-teeth-you-have” sort of monster, resulting in a collection that contains some profound insights and originality, but also instances where more chewing is needed for digestion.

Certain essays stand out in terms of…

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OGOM Migration Announcement

Dear followers,

We have been migrating the Open Graves, Open Minds website and blog to our own OGOM domain name (where we had our original website). This makes us easier to find through the more memorable www.opengravesopenminds.com domain name and allows more control over the content and appearance.

If you have subscribed to us with the WordPress ‘Follow’ button, you should have been transferred to the new site and still receive email alerts. If this hasn’t worked, you will have to subscribe again on the new site; if this is the case, we do apologise, as we do for any other inconvenience this has caused.

Bill, Sam, and Kaja

L’Abbe Bordelon’s ‘Monsieur Oufle’ on Radio 4 Extra

There is currently a radio adaptation of Abbe Laurent Bordelon’s A History of the Ridiculous Extravagancies of Monsieur Oufle (1710) on the BBC iPlayer. In the story, the eponymous M. Oufle, a believer in the supernatural and reader of works such as Jean Bodin and Henri Boguet (both of who wrote about lycanthropy), is so influenced by what he has read that he believes he has transformed into a wolf. Chantal Bourgault Du Coudray suggests in The Curse of the Werewolf; Fantasy, Horror and the Beast Within that the ‘principal message of Bordelon’s novel, then, is that all that is published is not necessarily true, and that the cultivation of an independent and critical approach to reading and learning is therefore essential’ (p. 13).This interpretation does not entirely encompass  the difficulties faced by Enlightenment scholars when reading earlier non-fiction accounts of lycanthropy, often by religious men. Bordelon embodies contemporary concerns regarding the relationship between fiction, non-fiction, subjective truth and imagination. His account of M. Oufle’s episode of lycanthropy, apparently brought on by an over-active imagination, makes early Medieval accounts of werewolves symbolic of the superstition of previous generations.

Bordelon’s tale is delightfully hilarious and it is possible to hear echoes of the character of M. Oufle in Richard Thomson’s ‘The Wehr-Wolf’ (1828), one of the earliest examples of the werewolf story in the English language.  The narrative contains the character of a pompous doctor who is scratched by a suspected werewolf and is convinced that he has become one himself.

 

 

 

Review of ‘Neon Joe: Werewolf Hunter’

The New York Times has reviewed the new television programme Neon Joe: Werewolf Hunter (2015-) which is appearing on the channel Adult Swim.

It looks like a great show for the festive season as our brains get addled by excessive food and drink.

CFP – Haunted Studies: The Ghost Stories of M. R. James, 19 March 2016, The Leeds Library

The Victorianist: BAVS Postgraduates

Haunted Studies: The Ghost Stories of M. R. James – a one-day conference at The Leeds Library, 19 March 2016

Confirmed keynote speakers:
Ramsay Campbell
Jacqueline Simpson
Andrew Smith

The ghost stories of Montague Rhodes James (1862-1936) are amongst the most influential in the English language. Never out of print, they have been adapted numerous times for stage, screen and other media and their formal and thematic features have come to embody the very model of the traditional English ghost story. Although widely read and tremendously influential, his stories have only recently begun to attract detailed academic attention.

Following the successful symposium, M.R. James and the Modern Ghost Story, held at the Leeds Library in March 2015, we are excited to announce a second one-day conference bringing together researchers with an interest in James’s fiction, assessing the significance of James’s ghost stories from a range of theoretical, literary and historical…

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Gothic Blooms: The Dark Sunflower

Following my post on Bloody and Monstrous Flowers. I thought I would picture my gothic sunflower. I have grown black tulips in the past but this is much more beautiful and surprising. I have commented on flowers that are thought of as monstrous in my book. These often include artificial hybrids, double blooms, freakish colours and out of season flowering. There is no denying that there is also a terrible beauty to be found in such luxuriants and this black/purple sunflower is  stunning….darkness made visible.

Wolf Alice Late at the Library

There is a Late at the Library Fairy Tale and Wonderland Event at the BL on 21st November which looks really magical. You can see a performance of Wolf Alice and take part in some scarily dark adventures through mirrors and looking glasses when Alice and her mirror image Alice explore their darker sides in a funny and gently disturbing piece by acclaimed performance artists Cocoloco. Poetic and just a little naughty. Adjoa Andoh peforms Wolf-Alice, the brilliantly gothic, twisted short story by Angela Carter with live illustrations by Gabi Froden. I really want to go to this….