Foreshadowings: Gormenghast

Our final Gothic Reading Group session in the current 2013-14 schedule takes place this week. After a journey through various Gothic (and not so Gothic) texts and other materials from the eighteenth-century to the present day, we're finishing by tackling something suitably momentous: Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast 'trilogy.' We'll be focussing on the first installment, Titus … Continue reading Foreshadowings: Gormenghast →

Foreshadowings: Batman

This week is another first for the Gothic Reading Group as we turn our attention to not one, but two new media and consider the role played by the long-running Batman franchise in defining a kind of popular Gothic. Batman may seem an odd place for a group of (predominantly) eighteenth- and nineteenth-century literary specialists to end … Continue reading Foreshadowings: Batman →

Foreshadowings: Le Fanu’s Carmilla

The next meeting of the Gothic Reading Group will tackle some fiction by J.S. Le Fanu, as we head into the nineteenth century and look at some classic 'Victorian Gothic.' Le Fanu has been on the cards for some time, having been one of the first authors suggested by GRG members in the 2012-13 year; … Continue reading Foreshadowings: Le Fanu’s Carmilla →

Foreshadowings: John Stagg, A Forgotten Gothic Poet

This week the Gothic Reading Group will boldly go where (to the best of our knowledge) no scholars have gone before as we tackle the forgotten Romantic-era poet, John Stagg. Ahead of the session Mark has been pondering where best to situate Stagg in our existing sense of eighteenth and nineteenth-century Gothic writing and doing … Continue reading Foreshadowings: John Stagg, A Forgotten Gothic Poet →

Foreshadowings – Do Goths Dream of Electric Bats?

We've a little over a week to go until our first session of 2014. As usual, we're kicking off with a film: Ridley Scott's Blade Runner, but this time we'll also be reading the film's source material: Philip K. Dick's short novel, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. Both 'texts' are famous within the canons of … Continue reading Foreshadowings – Do Goths Dream of Electric Bats? →

Sources and Resources – Background and Materials for Winterson

The Gothic Reading Group meets for its last session of 2013 this week: capping off a semester that's seen us travel from 21st century horror cinema to transatlantic 19th century fictionalisations of madness and now back (via a bit of cosmic horror) to Jeanette Winterson's 2012 novel based on the infamous Lancashire Witch trials. As … Continue reading Sources and Resources – Background and Materials for Winterson →