Category Archives: Critical thoughts

Mermaids: ballads, novels, films

Posted on 20th July 2018 by William the Bloody

Mermaids and related creatures such as sirens and selkies have a perennial appeal; we at OGOM love them and they have featured in quite a few posts here. There may be deep Freudian reasons for our fascination but we’re certainly … Continue reading →

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Buffy the Vampire Slayer: academia and Gothic heroines

Posted on 9th July 2018 by William the Bloody

Buffy the Vampire Slayer is a foundational text in many ways–not least, for OGOM’s origins, being the series which, with its wit, humanity, and dark imagination led me into vampire studies. It’s probably the TV series most written about by … Continue reading →

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Fairy Tales: art, essays, and resources

Posted on 9th July 2018 by William the Bloody

Some more interesting links on fairy tales: Margaret Carrigan, in ‘What Can Fairy Tales Tell Us About Today? Two Video Artists Offer Modern Takes‘, reviews the video art of Ericka Beckman and Marianna Simnett, showing at London’s Zabludowicz Collection through … Continue reading →

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RIP Gérard Genette (1930-2018)

Posted on 12th May 2018 by William the Bloody

I am very saddened by the death of Gérard Genette (1930-2018). Genette, for me, was one of most rewarding of French literary theorists. He employed a structuralist methodology but in a way that avoided metaphysical excesses and that never lost … Continue reading →

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Frankenstein and Counter-Enlightenment

Posted on 9th March 2018 by William the Bloody

I’m sure many will have seen the furore stirred up in social media, particularly among Gothicists, by the Sun’s article on Frankenstein, which screams, ‘SNOWFLAKE students claim Frankenstein’s monster was a misunderstood victim with feelings’. I don’t think it’s altogether … Continue reading →

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Manderley Today: 80 Years of Du Maurier’s Rebecca

Posted on 3rd March 2018 by William the Bloody

I first read Daphne du Maurier’s haunting Gothic Romances in my early teens. In my thirties I did an evening class in Female Gothic run by the pioneering Avril Horner and Sue Zloznik. This featured Rebecca among other exciting texts. … Continue reading →

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Big Bad Humans and Benevolent Wolves

Posted on 26th January 2018 by Sam George

Followers of OGOM will know that we have been at the forefront of debates around the cultural representation of the wolf since the Company of Wolves Conference in 2015. We went on to collaborate more fully with the UK Wolf … Continue reading →

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Ursula Le Guin: Tributes and Analysis

Posted on 25th January 2018 by William the Bloody

Some more valuable links to material on the wonderful Ursula K. Le Guin who, sadly, died on Monday (22 January 2017). Tributes from her fellow writers in SF and fantasy: ‘The Science Fiction and Fantasy Community Remembers Ursula K. Le … Continue reading →

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RIP Ursula K. Le Guin

Posted on 24th January 2018 by William the Bloody

Photo by Marian Wood Kolisch/University of Oregon It’s very sad to hear of the death of Ursula K. Le Guin, aged 88. For me, no other writer of SF or fantasy reaches the heights that she did. She was a … Continue reading →

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Merpeople and Monstrous Lovers

Posted on 16th January 2018 by William the Bloody

I’ve not seen Guillermo del Toro’s film The Shape of Water yet, but it appears to be an intriguing take on the ‘Beauty and the Beast’ archetype that lies behind the genre of Paranormal Romance. With its love affair between … Continue reading →

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