The Open Graves, Open Minds Project began by unearthing depictions of the vampire and the undead in literature, art, and other media, then embraced werewolves (and representations of wolves and wild children), fairies, and other supernatural beings and their worlds. The Project extends to all narratives of the fantastic, the folkloric, and the magical, emphasising that sense of Gothic as enchantment rather than simply horror. Through this, OGOM is articulating an ethical Gothic, cultivating moral agency and creating empathy for the marginalised, monstrous or othered, including the disenchanted natural world.
The UH Literature Research Seminar series is back after a short hiatus. We have changed the format slightly, so we have a mixture of current research papers and invited speakers and we’ve transitioned to Microsoft Teams as the University of Hertfordshire no longer supports Zoom. The slot has remained the same, once a month on Wednesdays, 1.30-2.30. These talks are open to all and are free to attend. The speaker normally presents for around 30-40 mins and then takes questions from attendees (either in the chat or live to camera). Its a friendly and supportive forum that is inclusive of ECRS and Research Students. Join me for the first of the new sessions on Wednesday 25 March at 1.30 on Teams. I look forward to any questions or comments.
Speaker: Sam George, Associate Professor of Research, University of Hertfordshire
Title: ‘The Luck of the Ningyō: Japanese human-fish Yokai and the rise of the fake museum mermaid’
Abstract: This paper will explore the representation of the Ningyō or Japanese human fish Yokai; a creature of genderless hybridity that functions as both a prophecy beast and a Mer Monster. I will explore its fascinating history, from the earliest sightings in folk tales and chronicles of Japan, to its manifestation in new media in the present. I argue that Ningyō were made monstrous through Japan’s interactions with the West when mummified or dried specimens were sold to Europeans for show in the nineteenth century. Descriptions of these mummified or desiccated mermaid creations are decidedly gothic and bring the Ningyō within the realms of the weird and the eerie. In Japan, however, they are sacred objects, inviting good fortune and acting as amulets in Buddhist or Shinto shrines, where they have lain preserved for centuries.
“Catherine Earnshaw, may you not rest, as long as I am living! You said I killed you – haunt me then….I believe – I know, that ghosts have wandered on this earth. Be with me always – take any form – drive me mad! Only do not leave me in this abyss where I cannot find you!” (Heathcliff on the death of Catherine, Emily Bronte, Wuthering Heights, 1847)
Last week I went on a gothic pilgrimage to East Riddlesden Hall in Keighley, West Yorkshire. This gothic pile, which dates back to the seventeenth century, has appeared in no less than three screen adaptations of Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights. The Hall’s contrasting features, with romantic Rose Windows set in darkened Yorkshire stone, make it the perfect setting for Bronte’s obsessional love-beyond-the-grave story.
Remarkably, the Hall was saved from demolition in 1937. It has in its archive a copy of the screenplay of the first ever film version of Wuthering Heights from Ideal Films Ltd in 1920. Perusing the typewritten script by Eliot Stannard, with annotations by the director A.V. Bramble, felt very special, a standout research moment. The level of detail is fascinating to Bronte scholars as it describes every scene and costume change that is important to this re-telling. You can read something of the description of Heathcliff in the photo of the script below. He is ‘capable of intense loves and hatreds’; ‘coarse’, ‘rough’ and ‘uncultivated’, ‘he is physically and temperamentally three times more manly than Edgar Linton’.
This 1920 film has sadly been lost to the ravages of time but the script was miraculously recovered in 2014. The archive also has the cinema programme which accompanied the original release of the film, with photos of its filming locations. This too is an important part of the legacy of the novel and its adaptations.
To date, there have been over 35 film and television adaptations of Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights. Since the first silent version in 1920, the story has continually been adapted with major films appearing in 1939, 1970, 1992, 2011 and 2026. The most iconic of these is the 1939 version starring Laurence Olivier and Merle Oberson.
Notable other twentieth-century adaptations include the 1970 film starring Timothy Dalton, and the 1992 version starring Ralph Fiennes and Juliette Binoche. In the twenty-first century we’ve had the 2009 Tom Hardy film and the 2011 version directed by Andrea Arnold. There have been interesting world adaptations too, from Abismos de Pasión (1954, Mexico), to Dil Diya Dard Liya (1966, India), and Hurlevent (1985, France). Wuthering Heights has inspired countless retellings, with each director shaping the story in their own way, from intense tales of revenge to sweeping unconventional romances, culminating in today’s adaptation directed by Emerald Fennell and starring Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi. The overt eroticism of this manifestation of the novel and the film’s obvious and intentional anachronisms have made it this year’s most divisive film. (Bill posted on Valentine’s Day about the controversy, about the romance elements in the novel and films, and about faithfulness in adaptations.)
In light of this, it’s fascinating to be able to come full circle and to return again to this spirited yet faithful 1920 script. Through this I have experienced the ideas behind the first ever adaptation of the gothic romance between Cathy and Heathcliff. East Riddlesden Hall has similarly evolved over time; like our approach to the novel, it has endured many changes and manifestations.
All photos are my own. With thanks to the Bronte Parsonage Museum who have worked tirelessly to preserve and share the literary legacy of the Bronte sisters.
Cynthia Erivo’s performance in Dracula is currently inspiring a lot of debate in the media due to its gender flipped agenda (round up of reviews here). Cynthia plays both The Count and his female victims. The production, adapted and directed by Kip Williams, is aiming to show that Stoker’s bloodsucking vampire is created by desire and the force of psychic repression. It’s showing at The Noel Coward Theatre until May 2026. I was interviewed for the Theatre Programme by journalist Marianka Swain. This feature, available to all theatre goers, can be found here as a PDF entitled The Undying Allure of the Vampire.
Interestingly, the first successful dramatization of Dracula adapted by Hamilton Deane premiered at the Grand Theatre in Derby in 1924 (twelve years after Stoker’s death). At this time, all plays intended for performance had to be examined and approved and given a licence. Deane had to submit his play to the Lord Chamberlain’s office in order to get it licensed. Dracula’s attack on Mina was censored (and Lucy is dead before the start of the action). Also, the censor prohibited the audience from seeing the vampire in the lady’s boudoir or viewing the staking of Dracula. Theatre goers saw the arm movements and then a cloak was drawn over the vampire’s features. Despite this, attendees fainted during this scene and Deane saw the potential for publicity, employing a nurse in uniform to walk nightly down the aisles!
In the twentieth century, Liz Lochhead’s adaptation released the repressed sexuality of Stoker’s novel for theatre audiences, much like the current production. Lucy Beckoned Dracula as her love and his attack on her parodied the marriage night as he wrapped a bridal veil around her naked form and stained the veil and bed with blood from her neck. At the end of the play, both Harker and Lucy are forced to reflect on their attraction to the vampire.
Kip Williams’s new production is also attempting a queering of the vampire through Cynthia’s portrayal of the Count. The novel itself is striking in its contexts; it is linked through 1888 London to the violence of the Jack the Ripper murders, the Wilde Trial in 1895 and also, the coining of the term ‘psychoanalysis’ by Freud in 1896. The Wilde Trial could be seen as a kind of return of the repressed for Stoker during the years he was writing the novel. The first five chapters have been read as a nightmarish meeting between Harker and Dracula, fictionalised projections of Stoker and Wilde. Stoker, some believe, had rejuvenated Wilde in the specific form of the vampire. At this time, sexologist Edward Carpenter had termed homosexuality ‘The intermediate sex’, inhabiting a no man’s land, like the vampire, who is neither alive or dead. If we are to go with this reading of the novel, it makes sense to think of the vampire representing not Wilde himself, but the fears, desires, repressions and punishments that Wilde’s name came to evoke in 1895-7 when Stoker was writing the novel. Dracula spends much of the novel as a hunted man, trying to escape his coffin/prison. You can see Dracula as a dreamlike projection of Wilde’s traumatic trial. The secrets necessary to a vampire’s life becoming ominous emblems of the vampire’s otherness and outsiderness.
In the novel, the construction of monstrosity is often analogous to sexual desire; this is the theme that this current production is developing. Erivo is showcasing a queering of the vampire for twenty-first-century audiences and a feminist retelling. The staking of Lucy is a fatal correction of her dangerous transgressions and violation of gender codes. It’s her fiancé Arthur who drives the stake in.
For me the most disturbing scene in the novel is not the staking of Lucy but Dracula’s attack on Mina, ‘God’s own woman’. Dracula forces Mina to drink from a wound in his chest; he has opened a vein with his sharp nails, forcing her face down on his chest ‘like a child forcing a kitten’s nose into a saucer of milk’. Her night dress is smeared with blood. Despite the lack of censorship in today’s theatre, I have never seen an adaptation of Dracula that has ever done justice to the terror this scene evokes in the novel.
The staging of the vampire has a fascinating history, and this current production is a reminder of it and also the fact that theatrical vampires before Dracula have always been overlooked. If you go to see this production, it might inspire you to find out about earlier vampire theatricals. My essay, ‘Phantasmagoria: Polidori’s The Vampyre from theatricals to vampire- slaying kits’ is in our book on The Legacy of John Polidori : The Romantic Vampire and Its Progeny. It’s out in paperback in June!
University of Edinburgh, 18-19 June 2026 (in person and on line)
Deadline: 15 March 2026
This conference aims to explore the relationship between monsters and the media in which they are portrayed, and the way monsters and monster theory can help us better understand media itself.
Undergraduate and Graduate Student Victorian Association (UGSVA), 28 April 2026 (on line)
Deadline: 31 March 2026
this conference asks: what do the Victorians mean to students today, and what can we gain from continuing to engage with these nineteenth-century texts? We invite undergraduate and graduate students to answer that question for us by sharing their work on Victorian themes and narratives that still speak to us today.
Osgood Perkins is emerging as one of the most significant directors of horror in the 21st century. [ . .] This proposed collection of essays will explore Perkins’ corpus of horror films (so far). I’m looking for at least one contribution on each of his films as well as essays that make larger thematic, aesthetic, philosophical, political claims across multiple films.
Radio talk, BBC Radio 4. Dr Merrick Burrow in conversation on the Cottingley Fairies.
Dr Burrow was a keynote speaker at our 2021 Ill met by moonlight conference on Gothic Faerie and is a contributor to our forthcoming book on the theme, Gothic Encounters with the Enchantment and the Fairy Realm in Literature and Culture.
The number of deepfakes shared online rose from around half a million in 2023 to eight million by 2025. While much of this material is seen as humorous or satirical, deepfakes are increasingly used for scams, misinformation, and political manipulation, exploiting a long-standing human weakness: our tendency to trust what we can see. The Long View explores a striking historical parallel — the Cottingley Fairies affair of 1917–1921.
An archaeology and storytelling workshop. Todmorden Folklore Centre, 7 Mar 2026, 18:00 – 20:00
Join Leaping Hare on a journey through time to the Medieval Malvern Priory, explore the stories from the Priory’s handmade tiles. In this workshop you can create your own story and make your own Malvern tile! All materials will be provided.
Viktor Wynd, The Folklore Society, 10 March 2026, 7 pm to 8:30 pm GMT (on line)
Viktor Wynd will discuss his idiosyncratic approach to performing and understanding fairy tales, his obsession with Papua New Guinea, the world’s second largest island, home to over 800 different peoples – each with their own rich cultural traditions – a country he has visited for a month or so every year for past decade. The lecture will end with a performance of a few of his favourite tales collected on the Sepik and in The Trobriand Islands featuring the moon, menstruation, man eating pigs, giant octopus and the spirit world.
Cozette Griffin-Kremer, The Folklore Society, 5 May 2026, 7 pm to 8:30 pm GMT+1
There is a wealth of customs associated with the lily-of-the-valley (Convallaria majalis L.) in France and this can only be a sampling that runs from the iconic plant’s botanical being, on to how it is associated with bringing good luck, and hence, with some of the famous people who have used the muguet to construct their own legends.
The Cambridge University Italian Society and Ars in Fieri – International Theatre Company Friday, March 13th – 7PM Saturday, March 14th – 4PM and 7PM Sunday, March 15th – 2PM
Freely based on Italian fairy tales adapted for the stage by Ludovico Nolfi and Elena Sottilotta, directed by Ludovico Nolfi.
The performance will be in Italian with English captions displayed live.
‘Is he a ghoul or a vampire?’ I mused. I had read of such hideous incarnate demons’ (Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights, Ch. 34)
Edmund Dulac, ‘“Come in! Come in”, he sobbed’, from Wuthering Heights (1922)
Like many others, I suspect, I’ve just started rereading Wuthering Heights. And I’m frequently seeing the admonition that too many of those who love this psychological novel of extreme love, saturated with the Gothic, are simply reading it wrongly. The novel, it is said, is not the classic romantic tale such readers think it is; Heathcliff and Catherine are monsters whose relationship is full of violence, narcissism, and abuse, and not the ideal love between the sexes people mistake it for.
And of course, the passion dramatised in Wuthering Heights really is cruel, selfish, and destructive (and intertwined with notions of class, race, and power). Yet I think we may dismiss the naïve reading too easily. We should ask why so many readers do see the novel as quintessentially romantic, why adaptations such as William Wyler’s 1931 film with Laurence Olivier and Merle Oberon unhesitatingly portray it as romance; why we find the dark, brooding Heathcliff and the wild, heedless Catherine sexy and fantasise them as perfect lovers. We should not ignore the pleasures to be found in this romance – for it is a romance – and (with a handful of other narratives) is the basis for a formula that is to be found in countless romantic fictions since. I favour pitting a redemptive reading of the novel as romance fiction against the ‘hermeneutics of suspicion’ of Paul Ricoeur, though engaging with it.
Gothic Romance
Laurence Olivier and Merle Oberon in Wuthering Heights, dir. by William Wyler (1931)
That narrative of dark and dangerous passion is repeated in the genre known as Gothic Romance, which flourished from (roughly) the 1950s to the 1970s, typified by writers such as Mary Stewart, Victoria Holt, Barbara Michaels, and Madeleine Brent, stemming from Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca (1938) – itself in some ways also a disturbingly unromantic tale. It is still found in the romantic fiction of Mills and Boon, despite their reformulation every decade to adapt to contemporary values: current products from this publisher feature strong-willed heroines with a career who yet still melt finally into the powerful arms of their brooding, even raging lovers. It is found in the recent reincarnations of Gothic Romance as paranormal romance and romantasy, where the metaphorical vampirism of Heathcliff (and his Byronic ancestors) becomes literal and the romance is spiced up by the added danger that the passionate lover’s bite may drain you of your blood; you may be torn to pieces by his wolfish fangs; a wild waltz with him may end with you enchanted and stolen to Faerie. It is notable that the Young Adult vampire romance Twilight (2005) (widely condemned for its representation of romance as acquiescence with patriarchal domination and even abuse) pointedly shows Bella Swan reading Wuthering Heights. The latter novel thus figures as a signifier for the idealised romantic love that Twilight is supposed to embody. (This metafictional device features in other paranormal romances.)
So, Wuthering Heights really is romantic fiction, and a key link in an intertextual chain of writing and rewriting passionate love over a couple of centuries. Reading it thus, placing it within a generic field can, I argue, better reveal the true nature of romantic passion in general – understanding its instinctual dynamics, its modulation by social forces, its dangers and pleasures, and even perhaps its utopian potential. We can observe and immerse ourselves in the play of egotism and the nihilation of the self; the revolt against convention and the submission to oppressive ideologies; asocial irrationality and Gothic enchantment against stifling instrumental reason; freedom and compulsion; Eros and Thanatos. Wuthering Heights is of course more self-aware than many romance novels and allows all these various and contradictory facets to emerge in a play of dangerously intoxicating pleasure. We need to read these fictions and even romance itself with the perspective of Fredric Jameson, holding both the ideological and the utopian aspects together; noting how they may form part of the mechanism of oppression while opening up in the imagination ways of emancipation.
Adaptation
Poster for Heathcliff (1966)
I am of course rereading Wuthering Heights, as I’m sure others are, because of the appearance of Emerald Fennel’s film ‘Wuthering Heights’ (the quotation marks are significant). I’ve not seen the film yet but have seen the wildly diverging reviews and followed the heated debates on social media. I have an uneasy relationship with adaptations of classic texts, especially ones I love (don’t get me started on Jane Austen!). And yet I may be in the wrong. One should be able to detach oneself from the source that is adapted (the ‘hypotext’, in the terminology of Gérard Genette). There can be a scholastic conservatism that resists new interpretations; there can also be a superficial revisionism that has scant respect for the original and glibly discards its complexities. I don’t suspect this new film of the former. The most vivid reworkings avoid both an arid historicism and a facile presentism.
The second part of the novel is rarely taken up in adaptations. There, an alternative model of an undistorted, mutual, more irenic romantic love appears. It is a love that is social and comfortably adapted to the Reality Principle. But it is the first generation of lovers that more readily captures readers’ souls. It is the wild passion in a bleak landscape and the desperate yearning from beyond the grave that inspires Kate Bush’s eponymous song, which ‘misinterprets’ the novel as romance fiction in an inspired manner.
Cinematic adaptations of the novel likewise have made these themes central. The trailers for Wyler’s and Fennel’s film both signal their generic affiliation to romance in almost the same words: ‘The greatest love story of our time . . . or any time!’, proclaims the 1939 trailer, while the 2026 film is ‘Inspired by the greatest love story of all time’. And the motif of eternal love transcending death is one of the devices that modulates the transmutation of the vampire narrative from Gothic horror into paranormal romance. This is suggested even in Tod Browning’s early adaptation of Dracula (1931); one poster for the film announces ‘The story of the strangest passion the world has ever known’, which could just as easily fit Wuthering Heights. But this submerged romantic theme comes fully to the fore in Frances Ford Coppola’s 1992 Bram Stoker’s Dracula, whose depiction of Count Dracula as tormented lover, grieving his dead love for eternity ‘across oceans of time’ surely echoes Heathcliff (whom Nelly Deans thinks of as ‘ghoul or vampire’). The posters for this film insist that ‘Love never dies’. (The plot device of Mina Harker as Dracula’s reincarnated lover has been employed since in quite a few paranormal romances. Mina reappears, too, ‘After centuries of waiting’, says the trailer, in the new Dracula directed by Luc Besson, which promises to be equally romantic.)
Wuthering Heights is now almost mythical material – a core myth, in fact, of the genre of romantic fiction (and such associated genres or subgenres as romantasy, paranormal romance, and historical romance). Just as there are many Antigones and countless revisionings of the Faust tale, and as Wuthering Heights itself reworks folklore and other texts, there are many possible avatars of Wuthering Heights (not all sublime; see the 1996 musical with Cliff Richard). (There’s a list here of some of the film and TV adaptations; Jacques Rivette’s Hurlevant (1985) should be there too, along with other non-Anglophone versions mentioned in this article.) I should really watch the new film with the attitude of encountering yet another retelling of a powerful myth of desire, death, and power (and everything else that this fabulous novel contains), and as a distinctive artefact in its own right.
Our research with the Open Graves, Open Minds Project centres upon the transmutation of genres, often including their folkloric and mythical origins. We are fascinated by the notion of Gothic enchantment, where enchantment may be the terrifying enthralment and bondage to an alien power, or an illuminating force that emancipates us by opening up new vistas. The rich ambiguities that give Wuthering Heights its magical power and entrance us with a vision of preternatural romantic love, provide a fine example of such Gothic enchantment.
Calling all prospective PhD students; the University of Hertfordshire has a new funding call open for applicants!! These studentships come to us via the AHRC Doctoral Landscape Award scheme, a major new funding scheme from the Arts and Humanities Research Council. We will offer the equivalent of three full-time fully funded PhD studentships each year for the next five years. Whilst applicants can work in any arts and humanities disciplines, we’d strongly encourage applicants for projects on any aspect of the gothic and/or folklore. We have supervisory expertise and capacity in these areas.
The first cohort will start in October 2026, and the deadline for applications is April 10 2026. Do have a look at these awards here and drop us a line if you are thinking of applying and would like any further advice on your proposed topic. This is not an award from OGOM itself but we can offer you a supportive environment from which to develop your project if you are successful and if you have a project that fits our mission statement:
The Open Graves, Open Minds Project began by unearthing depictions of the vampire and the undead in literature, art, and other media, then embraced werewolves (and representations of wolves and wild children), fairies, and other supernatural beings and their worlds. The Project extends to all narratives of the fantastic, the folkloric, and the magical, emphasising that sense of Gothic as enchantment rather than simply horror. Through this, OGOM is articulating an ethical Gothic, cultivating moral agency and creating empathy for the marginalised, monstrous or othered, including the disenchanted natural world.
We are a research group that has supported several PhD students to completion. You can view details of current students here (scroll down to see the Doctoral Student section).
I just wanted to share this video as it’s not everyday that you receive a personal message from James Marsters, or Spike from Buffy the Vampire Slayer!! Huge thanks to Daisy Butcher for arranging this. Between joy and surprise, I was speechless! What a memorable and special way of acknowledging the support you have received from me as your PhD supervisor. Bill also gets a mention, representing the importance of the OGOM crew in Daisy’s PhD journey (together with his cat Spike).
James Marsters talks openly about the making of Buffy here too, and how it can help people. This will hopefully inspire others on their PhD journey to not give up. Do have a watch; it’s extremely erudite and charming!
Sam and I and all the OGOM team wish you a Merry Christmas, Happy Solstice and holidays, and a fabulous, magical New Year!!
Watch out for OGOM events, news of our reseach and publications, and the CFP for our Sea Changes mermaids and selkies publications in the next couple of months,
Friend of OGOM, Sir Chris Frayling, has put together three books that he believes will help readers to understand vampires, drawing on his earlier idea of vampire archetypes. These include The Satanic Lord, the femme fatale, the Folkloric Vampire, and to this can now be added the Romantic Vampire, as elaborated on in our book John Polidori: The Romantic Vampire and its Progeny.We are thrilled that Sir Chris choose our book as one among only three that he was recommending on understanding vampires in The Observer this week. Do have a look at his selection: ‘What to read to understand vampires‘.
Mary Shelley’s annotations to the 1818 edition of Frankenstein owned by the Morgan Library and Museum
I am teaching my undergraduate module Romantic Origins and Gothic Afterlives this semester and Frankenstein week is coming up next. One of the things we are going to be focussing on is the monster’s reading, his self education, what he reads and why. The new Guillermo del Toro film takes some liberties with this, showing the creature reading Percy Shelley’s ‘Ozymandias’, published in the same year as the 1818 novel. This is a lively discussion topic however, and one I’m excited to share with my students next week.
I’m honoured to say that one of the module students, Souhardya Roy, known as Shaan, has just written a poem inspired by Mary Shelley. His poem, ‘The Monarch’, was ‘born from a fascination with Mary Shelley’s personal life and how she translated her pain into a piece of literature that birthed and cemented a new genre, all at the age of 18’. His prime desire was to ‘explore the Creature’s internal landscape and turn his alienation into a terrifying form of royalty, something he quite often does with his own emotions’. I wanted to post the remarkable poem in full ahead of our session and to share it with all our followers.
The Monarch
Tell me dear Father, Why give me a voice that is soundless Why give me eyes which cannot contain Why give me skin that hides not my flesh Why give me blood that would not flow? Tell me dear Father, Why make the mirror show a man And to man, a monster Why give me a heart that acts But does not beat Why show me the world And not give me legs Why give me pain And not a soul to feel it? Tell me dear Father, If I were to not be Would the world be less empty Or would it be less full? Look, look, look And see! A butterfly fluttering a raven’s wing! Look how high he flies! Look how moves his wings! Look how the worms peer up at him Father, O Father Am I not a monarch in Death’s skin? All roads lead to eventide All my steps take Its path Why then Father Am I denied joy The joy of Death? Why, pray tell Do the flowers look away when I walk The sun quickens his pace when I look Fresh bread rots on its way to my mouth? Who do I inquire And to whom do I profess That my name is Ozymandias, King of Kings; Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair! Despair on my behalf Feel the touch of my hollow soul Feel the kiss of my heartless being The monster, that I am too Nailed to the cross There is now blood flowing There is now sight And voice in my throat And there is but one lone tear in my eye For this is the Second Coming And I am the monster nailed to the cross Ah, a moment of happiness! Ah, a whole lifetime of moments Father, dear Father Do not steer away This is proof I have blood And just as yours Mine stains red Mine tangs of metal Mine tastes of salt Father, O Father What have you done! Given me a lifetime of joy With nothing but rust covered nails Father, O father I feel pain Father, O Father I feel pain, for I am not Dead Father, O Father I feel pain, and thus I exist But Father, dear Father What have you done? Now I am fearless Oh, so fearless For there is air in my chest And blood in my heart Oh, Ozymandias Nothing remains at last But You do And you are the King Does that not mean A Kingdom still breathes? Father, O Father Beware of Me Beware, for I am now fearless And therefore powerful Beware, for I am fearless And therefore I live But down the blood flows Life’s essence a shroud on thy shoe But I still will have a heart And that heart will break, And brokenly live on.
Biography
Souhardya Roy is a 21-year-old first-year undergraduate student studying English Literature and Creative Writing at the University of Hertfordshire. Deeply influenced by early Romanticism, especially the works of Shelley, Byron, and Keats, his writing explores the intersection of monstrosity and divinity through the lens of the human condition, a theme that aptly aligns with the Gothic revival in popular media. His work often seeks to give voice to the ‘other’, employing classic literary monsters and tragic biblical figures as allegories for the modern human. He sees human emotions such as remorse and alienation as tragedies carrying the same weight as cosmic or mythological events. When not writing, Souhardya can be found exploring the darker corners of London’s literary history or studying the works of Poe and The Smiths.
Marina Warner
Marina Warner is a writer of fiction, criticism and history; her works include novels and short stories as well as studies of art, myths, symbols and fairytales.
Centre for Myth Studies, University of Essex
The Centre It promotes the study of myth, from ancient to modern, and raises awareness of the importance of myth within the contemporary world.
Mythopoeic Society
The Mythopoeic Society is a non-profit organization devoted to the study of mythopoeic literature, particularly the works of members of the informal Oxford literary circle known as the “Inklings.”
Sheffield Gothic
Sheffield Gothic is a collective group of Postgraduate Students in the School of English at The University of Sheffield with a shared interest in all things Gothic.
American Gothic Studies
American Gothic Studies is the official journal of the Society for the Study of the American Gothic (SSAG), which promotes and advances the study of the American Gothic
Echinox Journal
Caietele Echinox is a biannual academic journal in world and comparative literature, dedicated to the study of the social, historical, cultural, religious, literary and arts imaginaries
Folklore
Journal of The Folklore Society. A fully peer-reviewed international journal of folklore and folkloristics, in printed and digital format
Gothic Nature
Gothic Nature: New Directions in Ecohorror and the Ecogothic
Gothic Studies
The official journal of the International Gothic Association considers the field of Gothic studies from the eighteenth century to the present day.
International Journal of Young Adult Literature
an academic peer-reviewed journal dedicated to publishing original and serious scholarship on young adult literature from all parts of the world.
Irish Journal of Gothic and Horror Studies
The Irish Journal of Gothic and Horror Studies (ISSN 2009-0374) is a peer-reviewed, interdisciplinary, electronic publication dedicated to the study of Gothic and horror literature, film, new media and television.
Journal of Popular Romance Studies
The Journal of Popular Romance Studies is a double-blind peer reviewed interdisciplinary journal exploring popular romance fiction and the logics, institutions, and social practices of romantic love in global popular culture.
Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts
An interdisciplinary journal devoted to the study of the fantastic in Literature, Art, Drama, Film, and Popular Media
Monsters and the Monstrous
Monsters and the Monstrous is a biannual peer reviewed global journal that serves to explore the broad concept of “The Monster” and “The Monstrous” from a multifaceted inter-disciplinary perspective.
Studies in the Fantastic
Studies in the Fantastic is a journal devoted to the Speculative, Fantastic, and Weird in literature and other arts
Supernatural Studies
Supernatural Studies is a peer-reviewed journal that promotes rigorous yet accessible scholarship in the growing field of representations of the supernatural, the speculative, the uncanny, and the weird.
The Lion and the Unicorn
The Lion and the Unicorn, an international theme- and genre-centered journal, is committed to a serious, ongoing discussion of literature for children.
Victorian Popular Fictions Journal
Victorian Popular Fictions is the journal of the Victorian Popular Fiction Association. The VPFA is a forum for the dissemination and discussion of new research into nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century popular narrativeo
Related Links
Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index
The Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index is a classification numeric system created to group similar folktales from different cultures
ACADEmy
LSAD centre for research into Art, Curatorial Studies, Applied Design and Art and Design Education
African Religions
With the Yoruba Religion Reader and similar resources
Angela Carter Society
Promoting the study and appreciation of the life and work of Angela Carter
Art Passions
Art Passions: Fairy Tales are the Myths We Live By
Asian Gothic
Asian Gothic appears as an attempt to make sense of the vast and diverse body of Asian literature, film, television, games, comics and other forms of cultural production by reading these texts from a Gothic perspective
British Association for Romantic Studies (BARS)
The UK’s leading national organisation for promoting the study of Romanticism and the history and culture of the period from which it emerged.
British Association for Victorian Studies (BAVS)
The British Association for Victorian Studies (BAVS) is a multidisciplinary organisation dedicated to the advancement and dissemination of knowledge about the Victorian period.
Byron Society
The Byron Society celebrates the life and works of Lord George Gordon Byron (1788-1824), a poet, traveller and revolutionary
Cambridge Research Network for Fairy-Tale Studies
The Cambridge Research Network for Fairy-Tale Studies is an open space at the University of Cambridge aimed at connecting researchers with an interest in fairy tales across different disciplines and scholarly perspectives.
Carterhaugh School
We give lectures and teach courses on fairy tales, folklore, witches, writing, and more. Basically, your ultimate fantasy college courses
Centre for Myth Studies, University of Essex
The Centre It promotes the study of myth, from ancient to modern, and raises awareness of the importance of myth within the contemporary world.
Deborah Hyde
Deborah Hyde wants to know why people believe in weird stuff. She attributes her fascination with the supernatural to having spent her childhood with mad aunties. She approaches the subject using the perspectives of psychology and history.
Fairyist: The Fairy Investigation Society
A website that will gather together sources, links, bibliographical references and discussions on fairies and related supernatural creatures
Folklore Society
The Folklore Society (FLS) is a learned society, based in London, devoted to the study of all aspects of folklore and tradition, including: ballads, folktales, fairy tales, myths, legends, traditional song and dance, folk plays, games, seasonal events, ca
Ghoul Guides
Home to the Ghoul Guides – a digital multimedia project devoted to exploring, understanding, and enjoying the wonders and weirdness of the Gothic
Gothic Feminism
Gothic Feminism is a research project based at the University of Kent which seeks to re-engage with theories of the Gothic and reflect specifically upon the depiction of the Gothic heroine in film
Gothic Herts Reading Group
This site is our one-stop platform for discussing our latest Gothic texts, from journal articles and press pieces, to full length books both old and new
Gothic Women Project
2023: The Year of Gothic Women. An interdisciplinary project devoted to spotlighting undervalued and understudied women writers
Haunted Shores
Haunted Shores Research Network, dedicated to investigating coasts and littoral space in Gothic, horror, and fantastic multimedia
Hellebore magazine
HELLEBORE is a UK-based small press devoted to British folk horror and the occult. Maria J. Pérez Cuervo publishes the magazine twice a year, on Beltane and Samhain
MEARCSTAPA
monsters: the experimental association for the research of cryptozoology through scholarly theory and practical application
Mermaids of the British Isles
a history of mermaids in the arts and cultural imagination of our early islands, which will map the place of these beguiling, and often deadly, figures in the national maritime imaginary, and explore our ancestors’ persistent reimagining of the mermaid
Open Folklore
Open Folklore is devoted to increasing the number of useful resources, published and unpublished, available in open access form for folklore studies and the communities with which folklorists partner
PCA Vampire Studies
A site dedicated to the Vampire Studies Area of the Pop Culture Association
Pook Press
Publisher of Vintage Illustrated Fairy Tales, Folk Tales and Children’s Classics
Romance Scholarship DB
This Romance Scholarship Database is therefore intended as a tool to assist popular romance scholars in their research into modern popular romance novels
RomanceWiki
A wiki resource for romance fiction authors, texts, and publishers
Science Fiction and Fantasy Research Database
The Science Fiction and Fantasy Research Database is a freely available online resource designed to help students and researchers locate secondary sources for the study of the science fiction and fantasy and associated genres.
Sophie Lancaster Foundation
The charity, known as The Sophie Lancaster Foundation, will focus on creating respect for and understanding of subcultures in our communities.
Supernatural Cities
Supernatural Cities is an interdisciplinary network of humanities and social science scholars of urban environments and the supernatural.
Supernatural Studies Association
The Supernatural Studies Association is an organization dedicated to the academic study of representations of the supernatural, the speculative, the uncanny, and the weird across periods and disciplines.
The Association for the Study of Buffy+
The mission of the Association is to promote the scholarship of Buffy+ Studies, focusing on inclusivity, intersectionality, and excellence. We define Buffy+ Studies as the scholarly exploration of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and its related texts.
The Society for the Study of the American Gothic (SSAG)
The Society for the Study of the American Gothic (SSAG) was established in 2023 to promote and advance the study of the American Gothic through research, teaching, and publication
The Thinker's Garden
we also love Plotinus and the Renaissance Platonists, as well as the Transcendentalists and Romantics. We are also drawn to the peculiarities of the Theosophists and hermeticists of the nineteenth century
Vamped
Vamped is a general interest non-fiction vampire site. We publish interviews, investigations, lists, opinions, reviews and articles on various topics.
Vampire Studies Association
TThe Vampire Studies Association (VSA) was founded by Anthony Hogg . . .“to establish vampire studies as a multidisciplinary field by promoting, disseminating and publishing contributions to vampire scholarship
Victorian Popular Fiction Association
The Association is committed to the revival of interest in understudied popular writers, literary genres and other cultural forms.
Wells at the World's End
I am reading through the complete works of H G Wells, in chronological order. This blog is for my jottings, as I go along.
YA Literature, Media, and Culture
YALMC is a resource for those of us researching, writing, writing about, interested in Young Adult Literature, Media, and Culture.
YA Studies Association (YASA)
The YA Studies Association (YASA) is an international organisation existing to increase the knowledge of, and research on, YA literature, media, and related fields
