Author Archives: Sam George

About Sam George

Associate Professor of Research, School of Humanities, University of Hertfordshire Co-convenor OGOM Project

Bristol Festival Celebrates Angela Carter, May 18th

The Bristol Festival of Ideas is following in the footsteps of OGOM: Company of Wolves  and is hosting an evening celebrating the life, work and legacy of Angela Carter on May 18th. Carter began her writing career in Bristol. During the event Sir … Continue reading

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Teen Gothic: P is for Paranormal – Still

  There has never really been a consensus about how we might define ‘paranormal’ or ‘dark romance’ and the ways it might differ from ‘urban fantasy’, or indeed how ‘dark fantasy’ is distinguishable from horror. Vampires are notably excluded from … Continue reading

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Robot Rom Com: Could it Happen?

 I tweeted about the BBC article The Rise of the Romantic Robot earlier in the week. I found it to be very pertinent to debates we have been having on the Generation Dead course about the humanised vampire and the … Continue reading

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Charm for St Valentine’s Eve

On going to bed, place your shoes in the form of the letter T and repeat the following verse. Then reverse the shoes, and say three times more. I place my shoes like a letter T In hopes my true … Continue reading

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CFP: BBEC Conference, University of Timișoara, Romania, 23th-25th June, 2016

I am pleased to announce that I am one of the Keynote Speakers at the Second International Conference ‘Beliefs and Behaviours in Education and Culture’ (BBEC) at the West University of Timișoara in Romania on 23th-25th June 2016. Professor Clive Bloom  will also … Continue reading

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Does 2016 Mark the Return of the Troll?

Apparently a Troll Doll is also known as a Dam Doll after their creator Danish woodcutter Thomas Dam, or as a Gonk Troll outside the US. There is a Danish connection for you here Kaja. Again, in Cumbria we would use the word ‘Gonk’ to … Continue reading

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Trolls and Tree people

In response to Kaja’s entertaining and informative post about trolls comes this picture which I love  from Grimm’s Fairy Tales, published by Constable in 1909. A wonderful example of one of Rackham’s anthropomorphic trees which has some similarities to the Norwegian troll … Continue reading

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It’s A Kind of Magic: The Books of Renaissance Magician John Dee Go On Display

One of the courses I was teaching last semester was Renaissance Literature and the most enjoyable part was the exploration of magic on stage from Dr Faustus to The Tempest and the magical statue scene in A Winter’s Tale. The … Continue reading

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Magical Skins: The Selkie’s Transformation

As soon as the seal was clear of the water, it reared up and its skin slipped down to the sand. What had been a seal was a white-skinned boy George Mackay Brown ‘Pictures in the Cave’ In response to … Continue reading

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YA Shapeshifters: The Selkie

The ‘Animal Kinship’ panel at OGOM Company of Wolves included some discussion of the ‘Selkie’ or shapeshifting seal. This elusive creature was discussed in Peter Le Couteur’s paper ‘Sealskins: Finns, Seal Wives, and Mythmaking’. We were rather excited to receive … Continue reading

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