Category Archives: Critical thoughts

Angela Carter: Wolves and other beasts

Posted on 11th October 2016 by William the Bloody

I won’t apologise for another post on the brilliant Angela Carter! This is an excellent article by Kat Ellinger on the wonderful Neil Jordan/Angela Carter collaboration The Company of Wolves. It shows how the source material of the film derives … Continue reading →

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Generation Dead: Introductory Workshop

Posted on 28th September 2016 by firekrank

Yesterday was my first lecture and seminars for ‘Generation Dead: Young Adult Fiction and the Gothic’. The chosen readings for the lecture were: Catherine Spooner, ‘Teen Demons’, Contemporary Gothic, 87-123; Roz Kaveney, ‘Dark Fantasy and Paranormal Romance’, Cambridge Companion to … Continue reading →

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Aiken Drum and the Scottish Brownie

Posted on 27th September 2016 by Sam George

The last time I was in Glasgow I came across this rather spooky painting of Aiken Drum or ‘the Brownie of Blednoch’ by E.A. Hornel (1889) in the Kelvin Grove Gallery and Museum The image is inspired by a poem … Continue reading →

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Remus Lupin’s ‘furry little problem’

Posted on 13th September 2016 by firekrank

My blog posts have been very absent recently (in my defence I am in the final stages of preparing to submit my thesis). However, I took the time to read and enjoy this article, ‘Remus Lupin and the stigmatised illness: … Continue reading →

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Cultural Afterlives of Frankenstein

Posted on 26th August 2016 by William the Bloody

Great post by Megen de Bruin-Molé–Cultural Afterlives of Frankenstein–on why works last and the enduring nature of the Frankenstein myth, traced from Mary Shelley’s novel through its myriad descendants and adaptations.

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A Guide to Ancient Magic

Posted on 26th August 2016 by William the Bloody

A fascinating, though brief, article from the Smithsonian on ancient spells and curses from Sumeria, Greece, and Rome

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Fairy tale and the bizarre

Posted on 10th August 2016 by William the Bloody

A very stimulating essay here by Tobias Carroll, ‘Why we love weird fairy tales’, tracing the career of the unsettling imagery found in the original fairy tale–here, particularly Giambattista Basile’s seventeenth-century collection The Tale of Tales. Carroll then shows the … Continue reading →

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SF and Romance

Posted on 6th August 2016 by William the Bloody

The worlds of science fiction and romance may seem antithetical but, as in the encounter of Gothic with romance that generates paranormal romance, the romance genre insinuates its way into the, perhaps, masculine, rationalist world of SF. Here, Gail Carriger, … Continue reading →

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Soviet Communism and Technological Utopia

Posted on 6th August 2016 by William the Bloody

The Soviet version of communism was infused with optimism about technology as much as about social transformation. Soviet science fiction expresses this utopianism, and there’s some great artwork here; there’s an imaginative power to these images that goes beyond the … Continue reading →

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Film noir and the Gothic

Posted on 5th August 2016 by William the Bloody

In a fascinating article, ‘Gothic Cinema in the ‘40s: Doomed Romance and Murderous Melodrama‘, Samm Deighan explores the overlaps between horror, film noir, and women’s films of the 1940s, and finding the Gothic mode there. Deighan discusses well-known classics such … Continue reading →

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