Following Reuters news of our werewolf conference ‘Company of Wolves’ has gone global! Here are some stories from around the world
Smithsonian Magazine
South China Morning Post
Russia Today
Kaja Franck, fellow OGOM researcher and conference coorganiser, responds brilliantly here in an interview for BBC Three Counties Radio on werewolves and the Company of Wolves conference.
The interview begins at 1:37:00–just after Duran Duran’s ‘Hungry Like the Wolf’ is played.
Kaja, you’re a star!
Here’s a summary of the latest press coverage for the OGOM Company of Wolves Conference, 3-5 September. There are still places available for those who want to come along (possibly the most fun you can have at an academic conference). You can see the full programme and book here at Company of Wolves . We are beyond excited!
Anisha Gani, The Guardian
Laurence Cawley, BBC News
Edgar Su, Reuters
We’re getting some excellent press coverage for the Company of Wolves conference (albeit with a few inaccuracies here and there); now on the BBC front page. Great to see Kaja fielding questions about her research to interested parties!! If any one asks there are still places (see Company of Wolves tab above). Keep an eye out for more stories…..
We now have a Facebook group for the Open Graves, Open Minds Project. This will be devoted in the next few weeks to the Company of Wolves conference, so please join up to receive the latest news about the conference and to participate in discussions.
The excitement is mounting as the Company of Wolves conference approaches! Today Kaja Franck, OGOM Researcher, has been interviewed by BBC News and by BBC Radio 4 about the conference. And the Guardian have also given us substantial coverage.
Watch these white wolves howl owoooooooooooooo
We have signed off the proofs for the final conference schedule. Click on the link below to view the fabulous design and see the event in its full glory. Its wonderful to see it all come together …get ready for some unexpected media coverage this weekend too after the press release goes out on Friday. Wolftastic!!
Awooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!
Company of Wolves Printed Programme
Matt Foley, Lecturer at the University of Stirling, has given a thoughtful and positive review of the Open Graves, Open Minds book for Gothic Imagination:
Under the stewardship of Dr Sam George and Dr Bill Hughes, The Open Graves, Open Minds research project at the University of Hertfordshire has proved to be a rich and rewarding enterprise that – during its five-years of investigation – has facilitated a range of scholars to read productively many of the myriad transmutations of the vampire and the werewolf, both historically and in contemporary fictions. Two years after its initial publication, however, there is a surprising lack of critical appreciation of one of the project’s central research outputs so far: the Manchester UP collection Open Graves, Open Minds: Representations of Vampires and the Undead from the Enlightenment to the Present (2013). Certainly, this is an oversight in Gothic studies, and George and Hughes’ collection is an important addition to any scholarly Gothic reading list or, indeed, any module that reads the all-pervasive figure of the vampire. There is much to admire in the essays collected here. To name only a few of its key central concerns, the volume contains important scholarship on Lord Byron and John Polidori, Sheridan Le Fanu’s Irish Gothic, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight series, and the complex identity politics that underpin just why, at least in contemporary fictions, society is shown to absorb vampiric groups into the mainstream. Both early-career and established researchers contribute to the book – there is a closing-piece, too, by YA author Marcus Sedgwick – and the study proves rich and varied in its conceptualisations of perhaps the most ubiquitous of Gothic figures.
You can read the full version of this lively and informed review here
Thanks Matt!!
I was lucky enough to spend a few days in the Southern France a few weeks ago. Of course, the wolves were never far behind.
Wolves were prevalent in the forested areas of Southern France (Robinson Crusoe’s companion gets eaten by one in Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe, 1719) until the 1900s by which time they had been essentially eradicated. Some of these early wolves gained reputations as man-eaters and huge hunts were undertaken to destroy them – as is so often the case, the wolf grew with the reputation until they were transformed into being monstrous in size and beastly in nature. One notable example of these ‘notorious’ man-eaters was the Beast of Gevaudan which terrorized the civilians of Gevaudan between 1764-1767 before it was shot dead. The animal gained a supernatural reputation one which outlived the creature itself. The myth of the Beast has been absorbed into Teen Wolf (2011- ) only, as to be expected, the wolf has become a werewolf.
Though wolves have not be re-introduced into France they have returned. Packs have moved from the Italian Alps into the French Alps in Southern France. As, may be expected, this has re-ignited ancient fears regarding the risk to domestic animals and humans. (The debates regarding the risks of wolf attacks on humans are extensive and complicated. It would appear that the rate of attacks differs from country to country. Equally, not only are some of the accounts questionable in their veracity but the motive of the attacks are not always made clear – like most creatures, humans included, wolves will kill due to hunger and when threatened. Statistics on the subject are difficult to verify and often only tell part of the story. Much like shark attacks, the fear of being attacked can overcome any rational engagement with the risks of such an attack).
Sadly on my visit, I was only able to see wild boars and deer. However, at the airport I did see an advert for the Alpha-Loup wolf sanctuary. As part of the visit, the sanctuary offers an insight into the difficulties in balancing the arguments for and against hunting wolves. I’m hoping to return in the future and visit the sanctuary so that I can consider how they frame these arguments and whether they demythologise the monstrous image of the wolf that can be seen in earlier accounts.
