Bill Hughes ‘Landscapes of Romance: Generic Boundaries and Epistemological Dialectics in the Paranormal Romance of Julie Kagawa’s The Iron King’

Posted on 10th January 2016 by William the Bloody

This is a draft of my article on Julia Kagawa’s richly allusive YA paranormal romance The Iron King. If you’re taking Sam’s Generation Dead module on YA fiction and the Gothic, or if you’re just interested in Gothic and genre generally, you might find it interesting. I explore how the conjunction of different genres in this novel is used to refract a parallel meeting of two ways of thinking about the world that people in today’s society straddle somewhat uncomfortably. There is a modern, scientific world-view that comes into conflict with a yearning for a pre- or anti-modern world-view that is often bound up with environmental concerns. Kagawa’s dark faerie romance (which is also lots of fun) uses clashing literary forms in a way that dramatises these contemporary issues.

Download article here

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Review of Matthew Bourne’s ‘Sleeping Beauty’

Posted on 10th January 2016 by firekrank

Last night I attended Matthew Bourne’s ‘Sleeping Beauty’ at Sadler’s Wells. Based upon Tchaikovsky’s ballet ‘The Sleeping Beauty’ (first performed in 1890), which in turn was based upon Charles Perrault’s ‘La belle au bois dormant’ (1696) and some aspects from the Brother Grimm’s version, ‘Little Briar Rose’ (1812), Bourne’s adaptation is a Gothic re-imagining of the original with the added frisson of vampires. As with my review of Mark Bruce’s ‘Dracula’, I cannot pretend to be an expert in any aspect of dance nor have I seen Tchaikovsky’s original with the choreography by Marius Petipa. Once again, I am reviewing as a Gothicist.

The ballet opens in 1890, a nod to the original ballet, with the sound of thunder and a baby crying. Silhouetted against a window in a foreboding and richly decorated fashionable drawing room, a monstrous winged figure holds aloft a baby also bedecked with wings. It is clear that the viewer is firmly in Gothic territory. The set and costumes throughout the production are saturated with the richest hues. Carabosse, the dark fairy, wears a Victorian gown in deep red velvet. In comparison, Aurora wears a series of white dresses throughout but this is not to suggest that she is demure. No blushing, shy princess, Aurora is headstrong with a penchant for being barefoot given her a fey quality. Even as a baby, shown by a marvellous bit of puppetry, she is mischievous and delights in the fairy revellers who come to entertain her nightly. Though it would take a hard-hearted person not to be delighted by their joyous steps. Rather than falling for a handsome prince, she is in love with the gardener Leo who goes on to be the hero of the piece. The dance between Leo and herself, just before she pricks her finger, is exquisitely romantic.

There were some wonderful additions to the tale with which the audience would be familiar. Carabosse, passes away leaving her son Caradoc to exact revenge on Aurora and her family. Having the same dancer perform both Carabosse and Caradoc suggested the continuity of evil in the blood line and spoke of the Gothic trope of family curses. In the same vein, I thoroughly enjoyed Aurora’s fairy godmother becoming Count Lilac, her fairy godfather, and his role was perhaps the most ambiguous. Introduced as a benign force who will save Aurora from the curse, the end of the second act reveals that he is a vampire who transforms Leo so that he will not age whilst Aurora sleeps and can keep watch over the castle taking use from the 1910 to present day(ish).

During the 100 year sleep, Caradoc is shown to be both aggressor and possessor towards Aurora and it is not clear whether he wants to destroy her or own her (or both). He watches over her, caressing her sleeping form and dancing with her though she is unable to perform as he wishes. When Leo emerges and kisses Aurora, Caradoc engineers the scene so it is not entirely clear to Aurora who provides the kiss which wakens her. In act four, we are transported to Caradoc’s hellfire-esque club. The costumes of his compatriots are luscious and eye-catching: all satin sheen, velvet, crimson, and darkest black bedecked with jewels. The arrival of Aurora dressed in a frayed, white dress and her almost tranquillized acquiescence to the caresses of Caradoc and his fellow revellers is unsettling. Luckily, there is a happy ending. Count Lilac and Leo are able to overcome Caradoc and Leo and Aurora escape to a bedroom. From here she emerges with Leo transformed into a vampire herself with a small winged child in tow. And being vampires, of course, they truly can live ‘Happily Ever After …’.

There were some faults with the production and for me these centred on the use of the Gothic. As a ‘family-friendly’ production, the darker elements of the original narrative and the vampire trope were not dwelt upon. Earlier versions of ‘Sleeping Beauty’, such as Giambattista Basile’s ‘Sun, Moon and Talia’ (1634), have the sleeping princess impregnated by the prince and giving birth whilst she sleeps. While the dance between Caradoc and the sleeping Aurora in act three suggests the possibility of rape, Caradoc’s subsequent imprisonment of the princess and her potential slaughter/ transformation is somewhat tame. The dance scenes in the act four at Caradoc’s hellfire club, despite the wonderful costumes, lack sexuality or dark desire. The Gothic potential here was left unexplored. Moreover, the addition of the vampires was a little tacked on. Whilst the revelation that Count Lilac and the transformation of Leo was shocking, I wasn’t entirely sure of the purpose of this vampiric element. Though it allowed for Leo to stay alive for 100 years without aging, Aurora was left entirely human in her enchanted sleep and still did not age – surely the same magic could have been used for Leo. It would have been preferable to have the notion of vampirism explored further with perhaps allusions to other key sanguinary texts. By not exploring the darker side of the Gothic elements or the role of the vampires, the production felt a little sanitised at times.

However, these are minor complaints and as an overall experience, Bourne’s ‘Sleeping Beauty’ is magical and filled with Gothic delight. My inner child, and princess, was thrilled by the richness and beauty of this production.

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‘Prints of Darkness: macabre vintage posters’

Posted on 10th January 2016 by firekrank

The Guardian has posted a series of macabre vintage posters entitled ‘Prints of Darkness’. (Whoever thought of that title needs some form of award!). They are dark, decadent and delightful. It is interesting to see the ways that the Gothic has been used to warn and seduce viewers.

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Fairy Tale Fashion at the FIT, NY

Posted on 10th January 2016 by firekrank

This is another post for my transatlantic friends (and one which I am bitterly jealous about and on which I have previously blogged). The Fashion Institute of Technology, New York, are hosting an exhibition on Fairy Tale Fashion (15 January – 16 April, 2016). It looks beautiful and fabulous and stunning and makes me think of the amazing plenary by Catherine Spooner at OGOM’s The Company of Wolves conference.

(It also reminds me that I must buy a copy of Bloody Fabulous: Stories of Fantasy and Fashion (2012) edited by Ekaterina Sedia). 

Not long ago I stumbled across a delightful article from 2014 in the Huffington Post about a women who dresses like a Disney princess everyday and this Tumblr on Disney Princess Fashion also has plenty of inspiration.  Although Disney can be a little saccharine, the outfits for the evil characters are magnificent. When I was younger, I always wanted to dress as Maleficent and was very disappointed to find that the Disney store only stocked Princess costumes.

Going back to the Fairy Tale Fashion exhibition, if any of our followers on the other side of the pond would like to review this exhibition let us know. We can be contacted on the Facebook page or on Twitter (@BillBloodyHughe, @DrSamGeorge1, or @KajaFranck).

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The Nightmare World of H. G. Wells

Posted on 10th January 2016 by firekrank

Starting on 28th January, Sky Arts are screening adaptations of four H. G. Wells novels. Though there isn’t a huge amount of information about the productions yet, the trailer looks wonderful and certainly whet my appetite.

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The Lesbian Vampire: A (Fairly) Brief Media Retrospective

Posted on 10th January 2016 by firekrank

The Mary Sue has written a relatively brief (as the title suggests), but still interesting, media retrospective on the lesbian vampire. It covers more recent portrayals and I was very pleased to see that the Carmilla web series on YouTube was mentioned.

‘The Moth Diaries’ (2011), the movies based on the novel of the same name by Rachel Klein, was also reviewed. I happened to read The Moth Diaries (2006) around the same time as another novel featuring teenage lesbian vampires called Sabine (2006) by A. P. Though it hasn’t had that much attention, it is a delicious novel that attempts to capture the shlocky pop culture of the 1950s.

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‘Witches’ Brew’ at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, February 2016

Posted on 10th January 2016 by firekrank

It’s not just vampires, werewolves and zombies that draw our interest at OGOM. We are equal opportunity supernatural entities and Sam has certainly been flying the flag for witches. (She has blogged about the ‘The Emergence of the Sympathetic Witch’, her own family history with witches, and more generally about witches in art).

So it’s exciting to see that the Brooklyn Academy of Music are hosting a month of movies which feature witchcraft, ‘Witches’ Brew’. If any of our transatlantic followers are able to attend and would like to blog their thoughts, let us know. You can contact us on our Facebook page or on Twitter (@BillBloodyHughe, @DrSamGeorge1, or, @KajaFranck).

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Generation Dead: Young Adult Fiction and the Gothic – Starts Jan 18th

Posted on 10th January 2016 by Sam George

sam

My Young Adult Fiction and the Gothic module ‘Generation Dead’ begins on January 18th. The students are going to be following the blog and attending the workshops described below:

All over the country in the world of young adult fiction teenagers who die aren’t staying dead. This module will interrogate the new high school Gothic, exploring the representation of the undead or living dead (werewolves, vampires and zombies) in dark or paranormal romance. Texts range from Daniel Waters’s zombie trilogy to Isaac Marion’s Warm Bodies and Holly Black’s Coldtown. We’ll also look at examples of werewolf fiction (Shiver) and at the folklore inspired novels of Marcus Sedgwick. YA fiction has attracted some of the most gifted writers who address these themes as a means of confronting death or discrimination or to engage with faith and embrace the enduring power of love. We will be theorising folklore and grappling with undead issues such as the notion of free will, damnation and redemption, the sexualisation of early teens, the effects of prejudice and the politics of difference.

This module is dedicated to Sophie Lancaster who was beaten to death in a park for being a ‘goth’. Please read Simon Armitage’s Black Roses: The Killing of Sophie Lancaster on StudyNet before beginning the module (we will draw on this representation of gothic subculture and otherness in our sessions). Stamp Out Prejudice, Hatred, Intolerance Everywhere

Generation Dead is taught via two hour workshops on Mondays 9.00-11.00 (room R118), 1.00-3.00 (room N105).

Introductory workshop – Constructing Adolescence in Gothic Fictions
18th Jan. Neil Gaiman, Coraline; Catherine Spooner, ‘Teen Demons’, Contemporary Gothic, pp. 87-123; Alison Waller, Constructing Adolescence in Fantastic Realism, 1-27; Lisa Perdigao, ‘Transform, and twist and change: Deconstructing Coraline’, The Gothic Fairy Tale in YA Literature, pp. 102-122

Zombies and the Politics of Difference
25th Jan. Daniel Waters, Generation Dead; Clive Bloom, ‘Day of the Dead’, THES, 28th June, 2010; Joni Richards Bodart, ‘The Generation Dead Series’, They Suck, They Bite, They Kill, pp.177-187; Bill Hughes, ‘‘Legally Recognised Undead’: Essence, Difference, Assimilation in Daniel Waters’s Generation Dead’, Open Graves, Open Minds, pp. 245-264; Mark Currie, ‘Other’, Diffference, pp. 133-4.

Zom Rom Com: Love Your Zombie
1st Feb. Isaac Marion, Warm Bodies; Fred Botting, ‘Love Your Zombie: Horror, Ethics, Excess’, The Gothic in Contemporary Literature and Popular Culture, pp. 19-37; Sasha Cocarla, ‘A Love Worth Un-dying For’ Zombies and Sexuality: Essays on Desire and the Living Dead, pp. 52-71.

Folklore and Fiction: The Elusive Vampire
8th Feb. Marcus Sedgwick, My Swordhand is Singing; Dom Augustin Calmet, ‘A Treatise on the Vampires of Hungary and Surrounding Regions’, Vampyres, pp. 87-103; Vladimir Propp, ‘Folklore and Literature’, Morphology of the Folktale, pp.378-87; Marcus Sedgwick, ‘The Elusive Vampire: Folklore and Fiction – Writing My Swordhand is Singing’, Open Graves, Open Minds, pp. 264-276.

Gothic Romanced
15th Feb. Buffy the Vampire Slayer [episode 2.13, ‘Surprise’, episode 2.14 ‘Innocence’]; Stephanie Meyer, Twilight; Sam George, Buffy Handout; Chris Richards, ‘What Are We? Adolescence, Sex and Intimacy in Buffy the Vampire Slayer’, Continuum, 18 (2004), 121-37’; Anna Silver, ‘Twilight is Not Good for Maidens’, Studies in the Novel, 42.1 (2010), 121-136; Rhonda Wilcox, ‘‘Every Night I Save You’: Buffy, Spike, Sex and Redemption’, Why Buffy Matters, pp. 79-89; Anne Billson, ‘Love and Other Catastrophes’, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, pp. 46-61; Danielle McGeough, ‘Twilight and Transformations of the Flesh: Reading the Body in Contemporary Youth Culture’, Bitten By Twilight, pp. 87-102; Catherine Spooner, ‘’Gothic Charm School: or How Vampires Learned to Sparkle’; Sara Wasson and Sarah Artt, ‘The Twilight Saga and the Pleasures of Spectatorship, the Broken Body and the Shining Body’, Open Graves, Open Minds, pp. 146-164, 181-224.

22nd-28th Feb. Reading Week

Intertextuality and the Female Vampire
29th Feb. Alyxandra Harvey, My Love Lies Bleeding; Carol A Senf ‘Daughters of Lilith: Women Vampires in Popular Literature’, The Blood is the Life: Vampires in Literature, pp. 199-217; Sam George, ‘Intertextuality’ (handout); Brothers Grimm, ‘Snow White’, Classic Fairy Tales, pp. 83-90

Consuming Gothic
7th March. Holly Black, The Coldest Girl in ColdTown; Rob Latham, ‘Youth Fetishism’, Consuming Youth, pp. 26-69;, Catherine Spooner, ‘Subcultural Style’, ‘Gothic Shopping’, ‘The Pursuit of the Undead Dollar’, Contemporary Gothic pp. 92-114, 145-153; Rhona Nicol, ‘Monstrosity will be called for’ Holly Black’s and Melissa Marr’s Urban Gothic Fairy tale Heroines’, The Gothic Fairy Tale in YA Literature, pp. 165-181.

Animal/Human Boundaries
14th March. Maggie Stiefvater, Shiver; Sabine Baring-Gould, ‘Folklore Relating to Werewolves’, ‘Natural Causes of Lycanthropy’, The Book of Werewolves, pp.77-97, 98-113; Chantal Bourgault Du Coudray, ‘Women who Run With Wolves’, The Curse of the Werewolf, pp. 112-130; ‘Joni Richards Bodart, ‘The Wolves of Mercy Falls Trilogy’, They Suck, They Bite, They Eat, They Kill, pp. 113-122; Kimberly McMahon-Coleman, ‘The True Self, Animal or Human’, Werewolves and Other Shapeshifters in Popular Culture, pp. 31-37; https://www.opengravesopenminds.com/critical-thoughts/bill-hughes-but-by-blood-no-wolf-am-i-language-and-agency-instinct-and-essence-transcending-antinomies-in-maggie-stiefvaters-shiver-series/

Wolf Children and Human Nature
21st March. Marcus Sedgwick, The Dark Horse; Lucien Malson, ‘Three Main Types of Wolf Children’, Wolf Children and the Problem of Human Nature, pp. 62-82; Matt Beresford, ‘The Fits of Fury: The Wolves of Germania’, The White Devil, pp. 57-84; Greg Garrard, ‘Looking at Animals’, Ecocriticism, pp. 152-180; ‘Chronotopes and Heritage, Time and Memory’, Kimberley Reynolds, ed., Contemporary Children’s Literature, pp. 156-172

Easter Break 25th March – 8th April

Animal Bridegrooms and Gothic Fairy Tales
11th April. Robin McKinley’s, Beauty; Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont, ‘Beauty and the Beast’, Maria Tatar, ed., The Classic Fairy Tales, pp. 25-42; ‘Female Coming of Age, the Mirror Stage and the Absence of Mirrors in Robin McKinley’s Beauty’, The Looking Glass, 8.1, (2004); Bruno Bettelheim, ‘The Animal Groom Cycle of Fairy Tales’, The Uses of Enchantment, pp. 277-311; Charles Perrault, ‘Donkeyskin’, Joseph Jacobs, ‘Catskin’; Angela Carter, ‘The Tiger’s Bride’, Classic Fairy Tales, pp. 109-177, 122-125, 50-66.

Dark Fairies: Shakespeare’s Puck and the Contemporary Never Never 18th April. Julie Kagawa, The Iron King; William Shakespeare, ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’, The Norton Shakespeare, Introduction, pp.805-813, Act 2. Scene 1, pp. 819-827, Act 5. Scene 2, ‘Epilogue’, p. 860. Julia Briggs, ‘Fairy Realms’, ‘Changelings and Midwives’, ‘The Poets’, ‘Fairy Beasts’, The Fairies in Tradition and Literature, pp. 14-30, 84-98, 136-46, 183-204; Joseph Jacobs, ‘The King O’ The Cats’, More English Fairy Tales, pp. 156-159. Roz Kaveney, ‘Dark Fantasy and Paranormal Romance’, Cambridge Companion to Fantasy Literature, pp. 214-224; ‘Environmentalism’, ‘Deep Ecology’, Greg Garrard, Ecocriticism, pp. 21-26. Sam George ‘Iron King Handout’ ; https://www.opengravesopenminds.com/critical-thoughts/bill-hughes-landscapes-of-romance-generic-boundaries-and-epistemological-dialectics-in-the-paranormal-romance-of-julie-kagawas-the-iron-king/

Examining Otherness: Revision Workshop
25th April.

imagwordses

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CFP Disconnected Forms: Narratives of the Fractured Self @DisConnnectForms

Posted on 7th January 2016 by Sam George
This  original and pertinent conference  is organised by PhD students Sandie Mills and Gul Dag at the University of Hull. OGOM regular Dr Catherine Spooner is one of the plenaries and her paper ‘Asylum Chic or What to Wear to the Lunatic’s Ball’ is worth signing up for alone as it looks wonderfully dark and entertaining. Anne Catherick’s costuming  in The Woman in White is my favourite take on Victorian madwoman chic.  The TV version of this novel with Andrew Lincoln and Tara Fitzgerald is one of the best adaptations of a Victorian gothic novel ever.  Another date  for your diaries 2016 is looking very gothicky!
 anne catherick

(Dis)Connected Forms: Narratives on the Fractured Self
8th and 9th September 2016
An Interdisciplinary Conference at the Wilberforce Institute for the Study of Slavery and Emancipation

Co-organised by Gul Dag and Sandra Mills
University of Hull

Discourses concerning the concept of (dis)connection are especially prevalent in contemporary society. The relationship between the mind and the body – whether fractured or in flux – feeds into notions of identity, the self, and the ‘other’. Contemporary scholarship focusing upon borders, transformations and creations considers the manifold ways in which the body can be (re)organised and (dis)assembled.

The notion of (dis)connection and the fragility of form is of central focus within a range of studies and genres. From the uncanniness of being in gothic and horror studies to the cerebral and corporeal fragmentation prevalent in science and speculative fictions, narratives on the fractured self continue to raise questions about the fundamentals of the lived experience.

Plenary Speakers
Dr Catherine Spooner, Reader in Literature and Culture at Lancaster University
Asylum Chic, or, What to Wear to the Lunatics’ Ball

Dr James Aston, Subject Leader for Screen at the University of Hull
“These movies have brought me many problems”: Performance and the Traumatised Self within Hardcore Horror

Dawn Woolley, Artist and Lecturer in Photography at Anglia Ruskin University
The Selfie: Still Life or Nature Morte?

This conference aims to engage with contemporary academic debate relating to the theme of (Dis)Connected Forms, and will explore how these discourses manifest in narratives on the fractured self.

Possible questions for consideration:
• What does it mean to be (dis)connected, fractured, transformed, metamorphosed?
• How are identities formed, managed, processed, controlled?
• Are corporeal boundaries distinct, or fluid and open to alteration?
• How is the self narrated/categorised?
• How are beings created, crafted, constructed?
• When/how can the ‘other’ be achieved?
• What threat does an ‘other’ pose?
• Can the human be defined in relation to the cyborg, the lifeless, and the animal?
• How does/will technology alter the body?

Possible focuses might include (but are not limited to):
• (Dis)Embodiment
• Identity
• Human, cyborg, lifeless, animal
• Transformation
• Metamorphosis
• Crisis of self
• The ‘other’
• Borders and boundaries
• (Re)creations
• The living and the dead
• Deviance
• Disguise
• Revision/alteration

Papers are invited that address these questions in relation to fictional and non-fictional narratives. Submissions which encourage an interdisciplinary outlook will be welcomed. These could include, but are not limited to: literature; cultural studies; the sciences; the social sciences; historical perspectives; theatrical, musical and visual narratives; (auto)biography; personal reflections and creative pieces.
Please send abstracts of no more than 250 words for a twenty minute paper along with a brief biographical note of no more than 100 words to disconnectedforms@gmail.com. The deadline for abstract submission is 3rd April 2016.
Please contact Gul Dag and Sandra Mills at disconnectedforms@gmail.com. For further information please see the website at disconnectedforms.wordpress.com and follow @DisConnectForms on Twitter.

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When the Sun Stands Still

Posted on 5th January 2016 by Sam George

sedgwick-main

We are gong to be posting a fair amount of material on YA fiction and the Gothic over the next few weeks whilst the Generation Dead module is running and I wanted to begin with this story for the Winter Solstice by Marcus Sedgwick – enchantingly told with his usual page turning panache.

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