Tuesday 28th November
Panel 1A: Institutions
Anactoria Clarke is interested in gothic texts and Greek mythology, especially where they intersect! She loves dark academia, all things to do with vampires, and one of her favourite vampire texts is Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s Certain Dark Things. Outside of academia, her life is ruled by her tyrannical mini longhaired sausage dog, Freddie.
Amy Sturgis is interested in the intellectual history of speculative fiction. Today her favorite Gothic text is Hangsaman by Shirley Jackson, but she’ll probably have a different one tomorrow. When she’s not skull-deep in the Gothic, she’s in the final frontier or a galaxy far, far away.
İpek Kotan Yiğit is interested in all kinds of Gothic literature, and at the moment she is making her way through Caitlin Kiernan’s Lovecraftian fiction. Other than reading, she enjoys spending time with her two cats, listening to music, and researching mid-to-late Victorian Gothic fiction.
Panel 1B: Consuming Genres
Erika Kvistad promised herself many years ago never to avoid a research topic on the grounds that it’s too weird, with the results you see today. She loves creepy architecture, Bluebeard narratives, and found footage, and right now, her favourite Gothic text is either Susanna Clarke’s Piranesi or Taylor Swift’s “No Body, No Crime”. She lives in Oslo.
Amal Saad is interested in children’s literature and 19th-century poetry. Her current favorite poem is Mary Elizabeth Coleridge’s ‘The Other Side of a Mirror.’ Outside of academia, she enjoys knitting and fuelling her caffeine addiction.
Panel 2A: Monstrous Cravings
Laura Eastlake is a Classicist and a Gothicist and is interested in the cultural spaces where these two seemingly-separate worlds collide.
Evan Hayles Gledhill denied being a goth as a teenager, but finally gave in to the night in their mid twenties. Since then, they’ve been researching monsters semi-professionally. They’re queer and disabled: ask them about their hyperfixations.
Panel 2B: Vampires, Feeding and Femininity
Laura Davidel is interested in vampires and permanent liminality. Her favourite Gothic text is Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice. Her favourite season is autumn, and she loves to visit castles.
Kelsey Shawgo is a gothic and horror nerd with a special affinity for vampire fiction and folklore. She is interested in classic gothic texts as well as pop culture works, from Frankenstein to Supernatural. Outside of research, she works in the live music industry, and is equally as obsessed with punk rock and metal music.
Adrienne Andrus is interested in representations of shame, guilt and anxiety in vampire texts. Her favourite Gothic Text is Interview with the Vampire. Outside of academia she is interested in boardgames and tabletop roleplaying games.
Panel 3A: Consumable Publications
Rose McKean is interested in Gothic street literature, book illustrations and early women’s writings. Her first (and favourite) Gothic novel was Wuthering Heights – she still has the Kate Bush music video dance routine memorised.
Dilanaz Güler is interested in the literary representations of cultural anxiety, fin de siècle periodicals, and the dramatic monologue.
Beth Brigham research explores the evolution of the gothic genre across the late- eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in relation to the development of anatomical study and its surrounding discourse. Her interests include the history of medical science, bodysnatching (in theory, not in practice), popular literature and culture, and the works of Mary Shelley. She is particularly passionate about recovering typically overlooked writers and literary forms, including women’s writing and working-class narratives, and she can generally be found in a second-hand bookshop, a medical collection, or a museum.
Panel 3B: Illness
Natalie Hurt is interested in all things Gothic, particularly those texts that also explore gender and sexuality. As an educator, she explores these themes with her students in texts such as Radcliffe’s The Mysteries of Udolpho and Polidori’s The Vampire. Outside of the Gothic, Natalie has a passion for Sylvia Plath and life writing. Her favourite book is The Bell Jar.
Kim D’Souza‘s main independent research lies within feminism and gender studies. They are a book worm who enjoys horror and gothic themes in literature and aspires to progress as a creative short-story writer in the future (this conference being a first at finalising and sharing work!).
Morrison Brown is an avid consumer of horror (and non-horror) films. His favourite Gothic text is The Last Feast of Harlequin by Thomas Ligotti and outside of academia he enjoys tabletop role playing games.
Panel 4A: Eco-Gothic Networks
Vicky Brewster‘s research is moving from hauntings in contemporary fiction to the asexual boom in contemporary sci-fi-horror, encompassing the Gothic, gender and sexuality, online subcultures, and posthuman forms. They work as an editor of long-form fiction and run the Gothic writing retreat, The Writing Haunt. Vicky also writes and runs horror live action roleplay events through Blanco’s Games, and is currently writing a LARP based on Agatha Christie’s Poirot. Ask Vicky for their *opinions* on the Kenneth Brannagh Poirot!
Gerardo López Lozada is mainly interested in the urban gothic of fin-de-siècle London. His favourite author is Arthur Machen. Outside academia he spends most of his spare time with his wife and his daughter. He’s been a big fan of survival horrors since the late 1990s.
Eser Pehlivan
Panel 4B: Monstrous Girlhood
Rai Powell is a monster-obsessed hermit from up north. When she’s not spending time surrounded by candles writing Gothic fiction, she’s chattering away about periods, patriarchy, autism, and K-pop to anyone who will listen.
Helena Blak is a Danish Gothicist primarily occupied with haunted homes, monstrous feminity, and the way both is consumed in digital culture. She loves 19th century Gothic novels, Shirley Jackson, and contemporary cult horror comedies. When not six foot deep in everything haunted and spooky, Helena likes to spend time walking along the ocean she lives by and – of course – hang out with her tuxedo cat Amy.
Samantha Miles is interested in gothic theatre and feminist playwriting, with her favourite gothic play texts including Annie Baker’s John and Caryl Churchill’s The Skriker. When she isn’t reading plays or visiting the theatre, she’s scouring her local second-hand shops for cursed trinkets.
Panel 5A: Food and Feasting
Bronte Crawford is a writer based in Liverpool, where she finds plenty of material to inspire spooky stories and Gothic tales. Her favourite authors include Angela Carter, Vernon Lee, and Marjorie Liu. She does not have any pets, but would one day like to own a pair of pigs or a small to moderately-sized eldritch horror.
Catherine Greenwood‘s permafrost unburial poetry is from a work-in-progress called Siberian Spring. She prefers haggis to mammoth meat, though must admit she has never actually tried any ice-age cuisine. She cut her reading teeth on a pocket edition of Edgar Allan Poe, and has never been the same since. For Gothic poetry fans, she highly recommends Grimoire: New Scottish Folk Tales by Scottish poet Robin Robertson.
Panel 5B: Imperialisms I
Charlotte Boyce has a (professional rather than a practical!) interest in all Gothic forms of consumption, from cannibalism to vampirism. Recently she’s been reading lots of Gothic fiction set in the Arctic, and outside academia she’s the human servant of two Cavalier King Charles Spaniels.
Janette Leaf research interests are fin-de-siècle Gothic fiction; weird insect imagery; nautical gothic and ghost ships; and representations of redheads. She is also an Egyptomaniac and has travelled by donkey around the Valley of Kings, entered many tombs and temples, but never robbed any! She often wears scarabs for good luck, and her favourite T shirt has a giant face of Tutankhamun on the front!
Beverley Thomas is a Black British writer of Caribbean heritage. She is interested in all things related to the ideas of Blackness and normalising the abnormal. She has two favourite Gothic texts. One is Fledgling by Octavia E Butler; the other is Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. Outside of academia she likes to eat her body weight in ice cream.
Wednesday 29th November
Panel 1: Imperialisms II
Benjamin Wylde is a horror author with a passion for all things dark, gothic, the intersections between history and myth, and, of course, general spookiness. It is his fascination for the un-dead, particularly vampires, that has led him to write ‘Daughter of the Nile’, a subversive mummy fable with a queer subtext. Benjamin has been a committed writer for much of his life, although his first short story was published in 2020, a ghostly Christmas tale that was featured in ‘The Chamber Magazine’. Since then he has had over seven short stories appear on various platforms, in print and online, such as The Horror Podcast, The Hive Anthology and Psycho-Toxin Press. In 2022 he self-published his first novel on Amazon; ‘Spirit Level: And Other Grotesque Stories’. An openly gay author, Benjamin has often explored queer themes in his writing. In particular, loneliness, alienation, suppressed desires, and burgeoning love between men.
Lauren Bruce is a fan of all things spooky, unusual, and Gothic! Her favourite films include The Mummy (1999) Gothic (1986) and The Shawshank Redemption (1994). Lauren haunts museums, libraries, and galleries, always searching for anything out of the ordinary…
Madelyn Walsh is interested in the relationship between water, memory, and slavery. She loves playing board games and will take on any escape room she comes across. Her favourite gothic boardgame is Cthulhu: Death May Die
Panel 2: Mothering and Female Networks
Li-Hui Tsai is a painter/illustrator, writer and Romanticist. She loves to read and write stories in her free time. She is an avid reader in crime and detective fiction, fantasy and Gothic novels. She was born on 28 November, just like William Blake.
Ella Alton researches the representation of nuns, spinsters, and generally ‘unruly’ women between 1600–1800. Outside of study, she can be found watching reality TV or spending too much money on brunch.
Catrin Lloyd is captivated by the presence of the feminine, queer, and camp within the Gothic genre and aesthetic. Her favourite Gothic text is Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray, yet she is also fascinated by the works of Toni Morrison. Outside of academia, she spends her time travelling and growing her (spiralling) book collection.
Panel 3: Meat Production and Capitalist Production
Mo O’Neill is interested in animals, as they appear in both Victorian letters and horror cinema. They don’t work primarily on the Gothic, but they love the literature (especially The Monk by Matthew Lewis) and so they enjoy the opportunity to connect their work to Gothic themes and hang out with Gothicists (and goths!).
Poulomi Chadhury is interested in cannibalism, death, food, and is a vegan killjoy. She was born in India but is loving her new status as an Irish and European citizen! She enjoys splatterpunk and horror and can often be found in the corner of a pub reading these “improper” books while productively procrastinating on research.
Bronte Schiltz researches horror on and about television, Penny Dreadfuls, the queer Gothic and literary ghost stories. Her favourite Gothic texts are Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton’s Inside No. 9, Stephen Volk’s Ghostwatch and everything by Nigel Kneale, especially The Stone Tape. She is the proud mother of three cats.
Sheffield Gothic 