The International Fairy-Tale Filmography

Posted on 15th October 2014 by William the Bloody

A useful resource here: a filmography of films based on fairy tales. Adaptations of fairy tales are another strand of paranormal romance, particularly in YA fiction and children’s literature, and the film versions invite comparisons with literary reworkings.

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When Gothic Was Born

Posted on 14th October 2014 by William the Bloody

In conjunction with the British Library’s Gothic exhibition, the BBC are showing programmes on all things Gothic:

When Gothic Was Born

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Locating the Gothic Conference and Werewolves

Posted on 14th October 2014 by firekrank

Late last month, OGOM posted about Locating the Gothic which is taking place in Limerick next week. This is one of many Gothic conferences that embraces the idea of Gothic geographies and spaces. (Something which makes me very pleased because it suggests that my theoretical approach to the werewolf is not only valid but popular. Honestly, this PhD has made me very superstitious).

I was lucky enough to be chosen to present at Locating the Gothic. Having never visited Limerick – conferences are a great excuse to travel! – hopefully I can mix business with pleasure.

My paper is entitled: “They Shoot Wolves Don’t They?”: Werewolves, Natural Boundaries, and Containing the Gothic; and the abstract is as follows:

“In November 2013, three wolves were shot dead having escaped from Colchester Zoo. Whilst debates regarding ‘rewilding’ the British countryside by reintroducing these animals show how little our attitude towards them has changed. Wolves remain the heretic, the outsider, and the threat represented by nature. These ideas culminate in the figure of the werewolf: a creature who has evolved from demonic fact to Gothic fiction. From ‘Little, Red Riding Hood’ to An American Werewolf in London, the figure of the werewolf has stimulated questions regarding the boundaries of the Gothic natural world and rational spaces of civilisation.

In Maggie Stiefvater’s Shiver trilogy lycanthropic spaces are demarcated through the use of nature reserves which are notionally used to offer protection for the humans outside and the animals within but now symbolise humanity’s attempts to contain monstrous nature. This paper looks to explore how Stiefvater’s work draws on the tropes of fairy tales and the supernatural to explore Gothic spaces positing a framework that de-constructs human/ animal relations. When human protagonists, whose liminality is embodied in their adolescence, challenge these boundaries by engaging with the animal within, the response by the adult world is violence towards the (were)wolves. However, by prioritizing the human aspect of the werewolf over its wolfish side Stiefvater’s text fails to fully engage with ecological debates surrounding human/ animal relations. Her naturalistic approach to the werewolf and use of scientific discourse in explaining the phenomenon undercuts the potential within the text to offer a supernatural space for the wolf to speak. Once again, the wolf remains at the margins of the Gothic text.”

Once I’m all done and dusted, I will post my review of the conference on the blog.

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CFP: Monstrous Geographies, Lisbon, 22-24 March 2015

Posted on 14th October 2014 by William the Bloody

This inter- and multidisciplinary conference focuses on the relationship between the monstrous and the geographic. We welcome proposals by academics, teachers, independent researchers, students, artists, NGOs and anyone interested in manifestations of monstrosity in space.

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Chris Riddell (author of Goth Girl) on Ada Lovelace

Posted on 14th October 2014 by William the Bloody

Chris Riddell, the author of the hilariously witty (and knowingly intertextual) Goth Girl children’s series, talks here about how the life of Ada Lovelace, pioneering computer programmer and daughter of Lord Byron, has influenced his work.

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Cassandra Clare’s Mortal Instruments to be a TV series

Posted on 14th October 2014 by William the Bloody

Cassandra Clare‘s excellent YA Mortal Instruments series (urban fantasy with elements of paranormal romance; demon hunters pitted against, and allying with, vampires, werewolves, and fallen angels) is to be a TV series (click here for details). The film (which I haven’t seen) was not that highly regarded; US TV tends to be more adventurous than Hollywood these days, so maybe this will work,

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Gothic Romance and the Phantasmagorical, Manchester, 23 October 2014

Posted on 13th October 2014 by William the Bloody

More events in MMU’s Gothic Festival:

Two great talks: Dale Townshend (on “Gothic Architecture, Gothic History, Gothic Romance: Kenilworth Castle, 1800-1830”) and “Prepare to Enter the Phantasmagoria!” Film screening, talk and Victorian lantern show, presented by David Annwn Jones.

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Zombie Make-Up Tutorial

Posted on 13th October 2014 by William the Bloody

A bit of fun for Halloween!

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CFP: Daughter of Fangdom: A Conference on Women and the Television Vampire, The University of Roehampton, 18 April 2015

Posted on 13th October 2014 by William the Bloody

We are delighted to announce that we will be holding a follow-up to TV Fangdom. Here is the CFP and more details to follow as they develop.

Daughter of Fangdom:
A Conference on Women and the Television Vampire
18 April 2015
The University of Roehampton
London

Following the success of TV Fangdom: A Conference on Television Vampires in 2013, the organisers announce a follow-up one-day conference, Daughter of Fangdom: A Conference on Women and the Television Vampire. Though Dracula remains the iconic image, female vampires have been around at least as long, if not longer, than their male counterparts and now they play a pivotal role within the ever expanding world of the TV vampire, often undermining or challenging the male vampires that so often dominate these shows. Women have also long been involved in the creation and the representation of vampires both male and female. The fiction of female writers such as Charlaine Harris and L.J. Smith has served as core course material for the televisual conception and re-conception of the reluctant vampire, while TV writers and producers such as Marti Noxon (Buffy) and Julie Plec (The Vampire Diaries and The Originals) have played a significant role in shaping the development of the genre for television.

Since vampires are not technically human, the terms male and female may apply, but representation of gender has the potential to be more fluid if vampires exist outside of human society. Given the ubiquity of the vampire in popular culture and particularly on TV, how is the female represented in vampire television? What roles do women have in bringing female vampires to the small screen? In what ways has the female vampire been remade for different eras of television, different TV genres, or different national contexts? Is the vampire on TV addressed specifically to female audiences and how do female viewers engage with TV vampires? What spaces exist on television for evading the gender binary and abandoning categories of male and female vampires altogether?

Proposals are invited on (but not limited to) the following topics:
• TV’s development of the female vampire
• Negotiation of gender and sexuality
• Evading binaries
• Female writers/ directors/ producers/ actors in vampire TV
• Adaptation and authorship
• Genre hybridity
• Female vampires in TV advertising
• New media, ancillary materials, extended and transmedia narratives
• Intersection with other media (novels, films, comics, video games, music)
• Audience and consumption (including fandom)
• The female and children’s vampire television
• Inter/national variants
• Translation and dubbing
We will be particularly interested in proposals on older TV shows, on those that have rarely been considered as vampire fictions, and on analysis of international vampire TV. The conference organisers welcome contributions from scholars within and outside universities, including research students, and perspectives are invited from different disciplines.

Please send proposals (250 words) for 20 minute papers plus a brief biography (100 words) to all three organisers by 15th December 2014.
s.abbott@roehampton.ac.uk
lorna.jowett@northampton.ac.uk
mike.starr@northampton.ac.uk

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Spectral Visions–Demon Lovers: Embracing the Monster in Paranormal Romance, Sunderland, 30 Oct

Posted on 13th October 2014 by William the Bloody

A synopsis of my forthcoming talk for the University of Sunderland’s Spectral Visions group; more details to follow soon:

The Twilight phenomenon has made us aware of a new kind of story about monsters. In these narratives the protagonist, instead of fleeing from it in terror or hunting it down, embraces the monster. Twilight was not the first of these tales (nor the best) and sparkly vampires are not the only demonic lovers. But despite a long history of monstrous couplings in literature, myth, and folklore, a distinct contemporary genre has emerged, called variously paranormal romance, dark romance, Gothic romance, or dark fantasy (though the definitions are imprecise and shift in reference).

The best known incarnation of this present-day demon lover is the sympathetic vampire, who was probably the first of these paranormal paramours to emerge from the shadows. But werewolves, angels, demons, fairies, trolls, cyborgs, and even the unlikely zombie have become objects of desire in these fictions (in film and TV as well as novels).

Such novels appeal to (or seem intended for) a mainly female and often young adult readership, which has led to some belittlement. But many of them are daringly creative, often questioning, and can be stylishly crafted with considerable literary care. Their presence is of more than sociological interest and the rise of new genres—new possibilities for writing and seeing, in other words—is itself of interest to those who value literature.

Literary monsters nearly always represent some kind of otherness—groups of people or sets of values deemed threatening to some elements of society. Their outsider status may be owing to class, ethnicity, or sexuality. Genres—kinds of writing—themselves correspond to different sets of values and different ways of knowing or looking at the world.

In this talk, I will be giving an overview of the wide range of these stories of loving what is dangerous, alien, and terrifying. I’ll give a brief account of how paranormal romance emerges out of an uncanny mating of the familiar scary Gothic horror and the oft-despised genre of romantic fiction (and other genres, too). Here, we can see what the collision of different perspectives can achieve and how it might be appealing. Through these novels, I’ll show what monsters may mean in today’s culture and what the dangerous loving of them might signify.

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