Events and CFPs: Fairytale ballads, water horses, Romanticism, Victorian, Gothic others, science, Ann Radcliffe

NB: The BARS deadline is approaching–29 September!!

Edit: I forgot to include the Haunted Landscape event at Conwy Hall–my apologies.

The Singing Bones: Ballads for the Witching Season

The Carterhaugh School, four weeks from 4 November, 2025; on line.

A fascinating course on the darker folkloric ballads. This is a topic very close to OGOM’s research on dark faerie literature, with its conjunction of the Gothic, the folkloric and the liteary!

Step into the half-lit world of traditional ballads where fairies steal lovers, ghosts demand revenge, devils make dark bargains, and murderers meet their fates beneath the waning moon. For centuries, these sung stories have carried humanity’s deepest fears and desires – grief, passion, enchantment, and awe – from one generation to the next, one firelit gathering at a time. In this course, we’ll listen, read, and feel our way through the shadowed beauty of the folkloric ballad tradition and discover how the Romantics reimagined these eerie tales for a new age.

The Legend, Lore and Spirit of the Water Horse

The Folklore Society, Tuesday, 4 November 2025; 7–8:30 pm GMT. On line

Another excursion into dark folklore after our own hearts, and sharing themes with our Sea Changes research.

Stephen Miller brings together the traditions of the water horse over the centuries in myths, folklore, literature and the visual arts

Some fabulous conferences in 2026; CFPs to follow:

CFP: Gothic Selves/Artificial Others: 18th Biennial Conference of the International Gothic Association

IGA, University of Hull, UK, 28–31 July, 2026

Deadline: 30 January 2026

Once speculative, artificial intelligence now haunts contemporary society, with public discourse around its application and scope ranging from the utopian to the apocalyptic. The Gothic’s fascination with doubles, simulacra, uncanny agency, and other forms of otherness offers rich tools for examining the anxieties and crucial ethical dilemmas provoked by AI. The Gothic has long been preoccupied with the unstable boundaries between the natural and the artificial, as well as between individual subjectivity and the sublime terror of being subsumed into larger networks of terrible knowledge. [. . .] ‘Gothic Selves/Artificial Others’ invites scholars and practitioners to explore the intersections of Gothic literature, culture, and theory with artificial intelligences, automated creativity, and posthuman forms of subjectivity.

The Haunted Landscape: Ghosts, Magic and Lore

London Fortean Society. Conway Hall, London. 22 November 2025, 10:00 am–5:00 pm GM. Doors open: 9:30am

Whose claws are scratching at the church door? What’s that ghost tumbling over the moor? Who’s that figure cut into the earth? What can I do to lift this curse? Join us for a legendary trip through the Haunted Landscape at London Fortean Society’s day of expert talks on British ghosts, magic and folklore.

CFP: Romantic Retrospection: The British Association for Romantic Studies (BARS) International Conference 2026

BARS, University of Birmingham, UK, Wednesday 29 July–Friday 31 July 2026

Deadline: 29 September 2025

The British Association for Romantic Studies’ 2026 International Conference will take as its theme Romantic Retrospection. The Romantic period has frequently been associated with newness, [. . .] Yet one of the contradictions and therefore abiding instincts of Romanticism is the way its writers, artists, and thinkers invariably performed a double move: looking and moving forward by glancing and turning back. Romantics saw and even defined themselves in relation to what had come before, tried to understand and explore the present by means of the past, contemplated their own past lives and selves as well as cultural and national memory, shaped their works out of a multitude of traditions and inheritances to which they remained admiring and indebted as well as sceptical. [. . .] We invite contributions on any aspect of Romantic Retrospection in relation to the writing, culture, institutions, practices, and criticism of the Romantic period.

British Association for Victorian Studies (BAVS) Conference 2026

BAVS, University of Liverpool, 27–29 July 2026

Deadline: 30 November 2025

There will be no specific theme for the conference. Papers on any aspect of long-nineteenth-century studies from across Art History, Music, Maritime History, Theatre History, the History of Science, Literature and History, to name a few, are welcome.

CFP: British Society for Literature and Science: 21st Annual Conference

BSLS, University of Strathclyde, 9–11 April 2026

Deadline: 12 December 2025

The BSLS invites proposals for twenty-minute papers, or panels of three papers, or roundtables, on any subjects within the field of literature (broadly defined to include theatre, film, and television) and science (including medicine and technology). The BSLS remains committed to supporting and showcasing work on all aspects of literature and science, including (but not limited to) animal studies, disability studies, the medical humanities, eco-criticism and the environmental humanities, science fiction studies, the blue humanities, and more.

CFP: More Terrors than her Reason Could Justify: Romancing the Gothic 2026 Online Conference

On line. No date yet

Deadline: 30 April 2026

A 200th Anniversary Celebration of Ann Radcliffe’s Posthumous Publications

2026 marks the 200th anniversary of the publication of Ann Radcliffe’s final posthumous works. Often paid scant attention in critical writing on Radcliffe, they challenge a number of common assumptions about Radcliffean form. [. . .] This conference though wishes to put her in her contemporary context – rather than viewing her as an exception, we seek papers about her which place her in her contemporary literary, social and political context and papers which explore the works of her contemporaries: other Gothic trail-blazers like Eliza Parsons, Charlotte Smith, Regina Maria Roche, Eleanor Sleath, Clara Reeve and more! The programme for this year’s conference also seeks to step beyond Radcliffe’s moment to explore her legacy through an exploration of the ways in which women and people of marginalised genders have explored the potential of the Gothic.