The Open Graves, Open Minds Project began by unearthing depictions of the vampire and the undead in literature, art, and other media, then embraced werewolves (and representations of wolves and wild children), fairies, and other supernatural beings and their worlds. The Project extends to all narratives of the fantastic, the folkloric, and the magical, emphasising that sense of Gothic as enchantment rather than simply horror. Through this, OGOM is articulating an ethical Gothic, cultivating moral agency and creating empathy for the marginalised, monstrous or othered, including the disenchanted natural world.
It’s the Year of the Vampire! A good time to share vampiric projects. In April 2022 I was excited to be a guest on BBC Radio 4’s In Our Time alongside Martin Rady (University College London) and Prof. Nick Groom (University of Macau). We were discussing John William Polidori’s ‘The Vampyre’ (links to the text).
It’s a lively discussion on the first fictional vampire. And there’s a reading list and related links. I hope you enjoy it. OGOM’s latest book, The Legacy of John William Polidori: The Romantic Vampyre and its Progeny will be out soon.
2022 is the YEAR of the VAMPIRE!! 100 years of Nosferatu, 125 years of Dracula, 150 years of Carmilla, 175 of Varney the Vampire, 25 years of Buffy and many more. OGOM has a special focus on vampire studies, so this is a very significant and important year. The project has already celebrated the Nosferatu Centenary with a wonderful symposium, Nosferatu at 100: The Vampire as Contagion (see our Twitter moment here) and we are planning another top-secret vampire event in October with the founder of modern vampire studies (all will be revealed). You can now view our celebratory page on The Year of the Vampire with a click-through gallery of vampires celebrating their anniversaries in 2022 (there are quite a few).
We have also designed a special Vampire Timeline and searchable Chronology of the Vampire for all gothic scholars and followers of OGOM. This timeline shows key texts (literary, cinematic, and TV) and events in the evolution of cultural representations of the vampire. We have chosen items that are the most significant or that we consider particularly interesting. Click on the left and right arrows to move through the vampire’s history. We will be continually updating this resource and we’re open to suggestions. Also new to the website is a Vampire Bibliography of secondary reading which we’ll update regularly with new vampire related material. (We will also be creating timelines and bibliographies for other OGOM topics.)
To get you in the mood for a little vampire nostalgia, have a look back at footage from our first ever vampire conference in 2010: ‘Vampires Make It into Academia’ a video from the Wall Street Journal. A little reminder, too, that following our centenary celebrations on Polidori’s Vampyrein 2019, our book The Legacy of John William Polidori: The Romantic Vampire and its Progeny will be launching soon (published by MUP). Fangs to all our followers. Do join us in October for further vampire-themed celebrations.
I was very honoured to be invited by Emily Paterson-Morgan of The Byron Society (@EPatersonMorgan) to give my talk, ‘Rebellion, treachery, and glamour: Lady Caroline Lamb’s Glenarvon and the Byronic vampire’. It’s an expanded version of the talk I gave for our Polidori Symposium in 2019 and will also form part of a chapter in our forthcoming book for Manchester University Press, The Legacy of John Polidori: The Romantic Vampire and its Progeny. I discussed the politics and form of Lamb’s Gothic novel and roman à clef (a fabulous novel which deserves more attention) and its relation to the later Gothic Romances and the Paranormal Romances of our own time, particularly in regard to the brooding, dangerous, vampiric lover modelled on Byron.
Sam and I had a lovely evening with the friendly and appreciative guests and members of the society. (Pictures courtesy of Emily via her Tweets.)
Some exciting events coming up! Some alluring vampire-themed material here, too, with what looks an intriguing contemporary dance adaptation of Dracula, and a festival of vampire films, discussed by Prof. Stacey Abbott, who has collaborated with OGOM from the beginning. In addition, I’ve added a link on our Resources page to the discussion featuring Dr Sam George on John Polidori’s ‘The Vampyre’, on BBC Radio 4’s In Our Time.
We are delighted to welcome a number of speakers in the fields of Gothic and Romantic studies, to discuss their research and other wider issues relating to postgraduate and postdoctoral study. We will be hosting a Research Panel, which will focus closely on the work of two Gothic scholars, and an ECR and Career Development Panel, which will look more at the process of thesis submission and possible career avenues for Gothic and Romantic researchers.
Bram Stoker classic inspires a show that covers the starkest paths of evilness. The myth of Dracula, one of the most sinister characters in universal literature history, is developed now with new conceptual and plastic contributions. The work explores new languages from an imaginative and enigmatic world in a mystical atmosphere full of pain, hallucination and loss.
This year’s festival features a retrospective of some of the best vampire films of the past 100 years, from Nosferatu right up to modern classic Blade. Our Dundead festival programmer Michael Coull caught up with Professor and writer Stacey Abbott to find out more about the horror sub-genre and get her thoughts on our fang-tastic line-up…
The CFP is now live for our second annual Halloween Symposium! The theme this year is ‘hauntings’ and presentations on all aspects of the theme are encouraged.
The BFS currently publishes two periodicals. BFS Horizons is a paperback journal of fiction, poetry and art. BFS Journal is now devoted to non-fiction: interviews, academic articles, reviews and features.
A sequel to the Queering Fantastika issue, this is an open call for papers for a special issue of Fantastika Journal which will explore the queer side of Arthurian tales, adaptations, and fan-works including any and all media, whether directly adapting or only alluding to Camelot and Grail narratives. This issue will present a multivalent approach and is seeking both critical and critical practice-based research on this subject.
Quite a diverse selection here of CFPs, forthcoming events, and resources; OGOM’s Dr Sam George and Dr Bill Hughes discussing vampiric matters among them!
Melvyn Bragg and guests [OGOM’s Dr Sam George, Prof. Nick Groom, Prof. Martyn Rady] discuss the influential novella of John Polidori (1795-1821) published in 1819 and attributed first to Lord Byron (1788-1824) who had started a version of it in 1816 at the Villa Diodati in the Year Without A Summer.
Dr Bill Hughes is at The Byron Society to give a talk that develops the ideas he first presented at OGOM’s 2019 symposium, ‘Some curious disquiet’: Polidori, the Byronic vampire, and its progeny (this will also be expanded upon in our forthcoming book The Legacy of John Polidori: The Romantic Vampyre and its Progeny (2022)). He will be tracing the progress of the Romantic vampire as political rebel through Lady Caroline Lamb’s Gothic novel Glenarvon, John Polidori’s The Vampyre, and their descendants in Gothic Romance and contemporary paranormal romance.
How can vampires help us heal? In the 125th anniversary year of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, this interdisciplinary project examines the continuing history of the vampire from the 19th century to the present, exploring how the vampire can function as a cultural figure of recovery, community, and regeneration.
It has been a decade and a half since the last period of sustained work exploring the ways in which gothic literature is, and might be, taught in the classroom. This symposium seeks to renew this important critical discussion. It invites contributions that explore the richness, value, and complexities of pedagogy that situates the careful scrutiny of gothic literature at its heart.
5. CFP: Candyman and the Whole Damn Swarm, hybrid conference, 7-9 October 2022, University of Sheffield/ Sheffield Hallam University. Deadline: 8 July 2022
Candyman and the Whole Damn Swarm is a hybrid conference celebrating the thirtieth anniversary of Candyman (1992). The conference – a collaboration between the Centre for the History of the Gothic at the University of Sheffield, Fear 2000 at Sheffield Hallam University, and the University of California, Riverside – will take place on Friday 7 – Sunday 9 October 2022.
This special issue attempts to systematize and formalize the study of folk horror, a subgenre whose meteoric rise (or return?) to popularity in the past ten years or so raises critical questions relating to rurality, “traditional” cultures, nationalism, and place, among others.
This Special Issue seeks to examine adaptations of the Gothic in all forms, from the novel to the short story, chapbooks and serialized publications. It will explore the recycling of essential elements of the Gothic as a sign of activity and innovation rather than monotony and stagnation. The recycling of the Gothic, whether specific motifs and characterizations or stories themselves, reveals continual interest and engagement between the author and the reader. This distinction is important not only because it allows recycling to be seen as crucial to the growth and sustainability of the Gothic, but also because it allows the Gothic tradition to continue to be viewed in the larger context of evolving discourses.
8. Event: Gothic Women Today: A Public Humanities Panel for Early Career Researchers, 17:00BST / 9:00PST, 14 April 2022
Do you want to share your knowledge of Gothic women writers with the world? Do you analyze the latest Gothic films according to 18C genre conventions? Do you want to meet like-minded fans and scholars of women’s writing beyond your university? Then join our discussion of how we can engage with the field of Public Humanities in this panel for early career (and beyond!) researchers. Hear Dr. Kim Simpson (Chawton House), Dr. Corin Throsby (Cambridge), Dr. Courtney Floyd and Dr. Eleanor Dumbill (Victorian Scribblers), and Dr. Sarah Faulkner (U of Washington) speak about their work bringing Gothic women writers alive and to the people.
“Goblin mode” is taking the current pandemic-ridden world by storm. This state of being is defined by behaviours that feel reminiscent of deep lockdown days – never getting out of bed, never changing into real clothes, grazing from tins or packets instead of cooking, binge watching television and doom-scrolling.
Goblin mode appears to be a reaction to the early pandemic emphasis on home and personal improvement – a “devil may care” attitude in the face of hyper-curated social media content. But this behaviour does not quite align with the goblins of folklore, who take a more playful and mischievous approach to life.
British writer and folklorist Katharine Briggs’s Dictionary of Fairies informs us that goblin is a “general name for evil and malicious spirits, usually small and grotesque in appearance”. Interestingly, the word goblin evolved to refer to a subterranean species – not far off from those who languish indoors during lockdown. But that’s where the similarities end.
There are many variants of goblin, with different characteristics, from the Highland fuath to the English goblin and the French gobelin. Today, the term goblin encompasses any fairy with an injurious intent, such as Knockers, Phookas, Spriggans, Trolls or Trows.
Goblin behaviour can range from mild pranks to acts of outright terror. A goblin is seldom welcomed, even by its own kind. Goblins are certainly a menace in the home. According to mythology expert Theresa Bane, “a house goblin, will work against the family living there, making their life more difficult by banging on pots and pans, knocking on doors and walls and rearranging items in the house”.
In British and German lore, they can shapeshift, and will typically take the form of whatever animal best reflects their beastlike nature. This aspect of goblin lore is represented in Christina Rossetti’s 1862 poem Goblin Market:
One had a cat’s face, one whisked a tail, one tramped at a rat’s pace, one crawled like a snail. One like a wombat prowled obtuse and furry, one like a ratel tumbled hurry skurry.
This Victorian poem is an early example of goblins behaving badly. They stand in for predatory corrupting males, using forbidden faerie fruits to lure female victims to their doom. Most goblins depicted in literature and folklore are active, playing pranks and generally causing trouble for the humans around them. They do not sit passively at home, surrounded by creature comforts, lazing the day away.
The “goblin mode” trend might even be seen to malign certain goblins. Hobgoblins, for example, are helpful and well-disposed towards humankind, if sometimes mischievous and tricksy. Puck in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream is one such character. Like all hobgoblins, he’s a shapeshifter, and also performs labours for humans, much like the brownie, a house spirit known for its helpfulness.
Vampire mode
A closer look at the goblins of folklore tells us that goblin mode might be somewhat of a misnomer. There is, however, another mythical creature whose characteristics are more fitting for this time period – the vampire.
Vampires have long been associated with disease and contagion. This characterisation draws in part from Dracula, but it also feeds on wider fears and collective obsessions around networks of contagion and contamination.
The 1922 film Nosferatu came out shortly after the Spanish influenza pandemic of 1918-19, which killed more people worldwide than the first world war. The word Nosferatu is similar to the Greek word nosforos, meaning “plague bearer”. He even looks like a plague rat, with fangs set at the front of his mouth like the vermin he brings in his wake.
But over the last 200 years, Vampires in popular culture have evolved from plague-ridden creatures like Nosferatu to sparkling, aspirational sex symbols. Instead of holing up and resigning to a fate forever in goblin mode, we should follow the example set by vampires and aim to emerge from the pandemic as better versions of ourselves.
The Cullen family from the book and movie franchise Twilight is the best representation of this dramatic shift. They are attractive, cool, youthful and partake in normal human social behaviour like going to school and dating – a far cry from plague-bearing, sickly Nosferatu. Repulsion cedes to attraction as horror gives way to romance. Goblins by comparison, are unlikely romantic leads, they’re not sexy – or aspirational.
Modern vampires also have an association with youthful culture that could be refreshing after two years of pandemic-induced hibernation. The film Lost Boys, in which Kiefer Sutherland’s undead crew inhabits a fashionably grungy underground domain, was released with the strapline “Sleep all day. Party all night. Never grow old. Never die”. This would be an appropriate post-lockdown motto. It’s time we stopped languishing like goblins and started flourishing as newly born vampires.
We’ve added some new links to the OGOM website, expanding its potential as a research tool for students, early career researchers, and established scholars.
1. Sam George on Anne Rice
OGOM’s Dr Sam George gave a talk recently on BBC Radio 4’s Last Word, following the sad death of Anne Rice, author of Interview With the Vampire and the subsequent Vampire Chronicles novels. There is now a link to that talk from our Resources page for Online talks and interviews.
2. Mythological Africans
Those of you who follow Helen Nde’s brilliant @MythicAfricans posts on Twitter will be pleased to know she has set up the Mythological Africans website as an excellent resource for the many divers mythological and folkloric traditions in Africa. We’ve set up a Related Link to this on the right-hand column of our Blog and Resources pages so that you can conveniently access it among the other useful links we have there
3. Mapping the Impossible: Journal of Fantasy Research
A new online journal has just emerged: Mapping the Impossible: Journal of Fantasy Research, affiliated to the University of Glasgow’s Centre for Fantasy and the Fantastic. It is an open-access student journal publishing peer-reviewed research into fantasy and the fantastic. We’ve added a link to our list of relevant journals (again, on the right-hand column of the Blog and Resources pages) and we wish them best of luck in this new venture.
“I am glad it cannot happen twice, the fever of first love,” writes Daphne du Maurier in her 1938 domestic Gothic novel Rebecca. But to look at Rebecca’s legacy is to see the fever of love for the story itself happen over and over again. Its influences on the 20th century domestic gothic and 21st century domestic noir literary genres have been well documented [. . .] This symposium will be held on Friday 27th May at Sussex University, aiming to explore these questions and beyond through examinations of du Maurier’s novel and its legacy: its feverish first love, its second wives, and its haunting, ghostly imprint on popular culture.
Online Event: Saturday, 12 March 2022, 10.00 – 14.35 GMT
2022 marks the 100th anniversary of the release of F. W. Murnau’s classic vampire film, Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror. The Open Graves, Open Minds Project are hosting an online event to celebrate the 100th anniversary of this film, which premiered in March 1922. We will have talks by the leading scholars of vampire and Gothic film, Prof. Stacey Abbott, Dr Xavier Aldana Reyes, Dr Sam George, and the novelist Marcus Sedgwick, with concluding addresses by Prof. Ken Gelder and Dr Bill Hughes. There will be opportunities for all attendees to ask questions of the panel and join in discussion. There will also be a vampiric flash fiction writing competition for those who are feeling creative.
I have generously been invited by The Byron Society to give a talk that develops the ideas I first presented at OGOM’s 2019 symposium, ‘Some curious disquiet’: Polidori, the Byronic vampire, and its progeny (this will also be expanded upon in our forthcoming book The Legacy of John Polidori: The Romantic Vampyre and its Progeny (2022)). I’ll be tracing the progress of the Romantic vampire as political rebel through Lady Caroline Lamb’s Gothic novel Glenarvon, John Polidori’s The Vampyre, and their descendants in Gothic Romance and contemporary paranormal romance.
Continuing the theme of Byronic rebellion, ‘The Byron Society is pleased to announce that it is sponsoring a panel at the 2022 BARS/NASSR annual conference on the theme Byronic Modes of Rebellion, and providing bursaries of £250.00 each for three speakers.’
Centre for Myth Studies, University of Essex
The Centre It promotes the study of myth, from ancient to modern, and raises awareness of the importance of myth within the contemporary world.
Mythopoeic Society
The Mythopoeic Society is a non-profit organization devoted to the study of mythopoeic literature, particularly the works of members of the informal Oxford literary circle known as the “Inklings.”
Sheffield Gothic
Sheffield Gothic is a collective group of Postgraduate Students in the School of English at The University of Sheffield with a shared interest in all things Gothic.
American Gothic Studies
American Gothic Studies is the official journal of the Society for the Study of the American Gothic (SSAG), which promotes and advances the study of the American Gothic
Echinox Journal
Caietele Echinox is a biannual academic journal in world and comparative literature, dedicated to the study of the social, historical, cultural, religious, literary and arts imaginaries
Folklore
Journal of The Folklore Society. A fully peer-reviewed international journal of folklore and folkloristics, in printed and digital format
Gothic Nature
Gothic Nature: New Directions in Ecohorror and the Ecogothic
Gothic Studies
The official journal of the International Gothic Association considers the field of Gothic studies from the eighteenth century to the present day.
International Journal of Young Adult Literature
an academic peer-reviewed journal dedicated to publishing original and serious scholarship on young adult literature from all parts of the world.
Irish Journal of Gothic and Horror Studies
The Irish Journal of Gothic and Horror Studies (ISSN 2009-0374) is a peer-reviewed, interdisciplinary, electronic publication dedicated to the study of Gothic and horror literature, film, new media and television.
Journal of Popular Romance Studies
The Journal of Popular Romance Studies is a double-blind peer reviewed interdisciplinary journal exploring popular romance fiction and the logics, institutions, and social practices of romantic love in global popular culture.
Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts
An interdisciplinary journal devoted to the study of the fantastic in Literature, Art, Drama, Film, and Popular Media
Monsters and the Monstrous
Monsters and the Monstrous is a biannual peer reviewed global journal that serves to explore the broad concept of “The Monster” and “The Monstrous” from a multifaceted inter-disciplinary perspective.
Studies in the Fantastic
Studies in the Fantastic is a journal devoted to the Speculative, Fantastic, and Weird in literature and other arts
Supernatural Studies
Supernatural Studies is a peer-reviewed journal that promotes rigorous yet accessible scholarship in the growing field of representations of the supernatural, the speculative, the uncanny, and the weird.
The Lion and the Unicorn
The Lion and the Unicorn, an international theme- and genre-centered journal, is committed to a serious, ongoing discussion of literature for children.
Victorian Popular Fictions Journal
Victorian Popular Fictions is the journal of the Victorian Popular Fiction Association. The VPFA is a forum for the dissemination and discussion of new research into nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century popular narrativeo
Related Links
Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index
The Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index is a classification numeric system created to group similar folktales from different cultures
ACADEmy
LSAD centre for research into Art, Curatorial Studies, Applied Design and Art and Design Education
African Religions
With the Yoruba Religion Reader and similar resources
Angela Carter Society
Promoting the study and appreciation of the life and work of Angela Carter
Art Passions
Art Passions: Fairy Tales are the Myths We Live By
Asian Gothic
Asian Gothic appears as an attempt to make sense of the vast and diverse body of Asian literature, film, television, games, comics and other forms of cultural production by reading these texts from a Gothic perspective
British Association for Romantic Studies (BARS)
The UK’s leading national organisation for promoting the study of Romanticism and the history and culture of the period from which it emerged.
British Association for Victorian Studies (BAVS)
The British Association for Victorian Studies (BAVS) is a multidisciplinary organisation dedicated to the advancement and dissemination of knowledge about the Victorian period.
Byron Society
The Byron Society celebrates the life and works of Lord George Gordon Byron (1788-1824), a poet, traveller and revolutionary
Cambridge Research Network for Fairy-Tale Studies
The Cambridge Research Network for Fairy-Tale Studies is an open space at the University of Cambridge aimed at connecting researchers with an interest in fairy tales across different disciplines and scholarly perspectives.
Centre for Myth Studies, University of Essex
The Centre It promotes the study of myth, from ancient to modern, and raises awareness of the importance of myth within the contemporary world.
Fairy Investigation Society, The
a website that will gather together sources, links, bibliographical references and discussions on fairies and related supernatural creatures
Folklore Society
The Folklore Society (FLS) is a learned society, based in London, devoted to the study of all aspects of folklore and tradition, including: ballads, folktales, fairy tales, myths, legends, traditional song and dance, folk plays, games, seasonal events, ca
Ghoul Guides
Home to the Ghoul Guides – a digital multimedia project devoted to exploring, understanding, and enjoying the wonders and weirdness of the Gothic
Gothic Feminism
Gothic Feminism is a research project based at the University of Kent which seeks to re-engage with theories of the Gothic and reflect specifically upon the depiction of the Gothic heroine in film
Gothic Herts Reading Group
This site is our one-stop platform for discussing our latest Gothic texts, from journal articles and press pieces, to full length books both old and new
Gothic Women Project
2023: The Year of Gothic Women. An interdisciplinary project devoted to spotlighting undervalued and understudied women writers
MEARCSTAPA
monsters: the experimental association for the research of cryptozoology through scholarly theory and practical application
Mermaids of the British Isles
a history of mermaids in the arts and cultural imagination of our early islands, which will map the place of these beguiling, and often deadly, figures in the national maritime imaginary, and explore our ancestors’ persistent reimagining of the mermaid
Open Folklore
Open Folklore is devoted to increasing the number of useful resources, published and unpublished, available in open access form for folklore studies and the communities with which folklorists partner
PCA Vampire Studies
A site dedicated to the Vampire Studies Area of the Pop Culture Association
Pook Press
Publisher of Vintage Illustrated Fairy Tales, Folk Tales and Children’s Classics
Science Fiction and Fantasy Research Database
The Science Fiction and Fantasy Research Database is a freely available online resource designed to help students and researchers locate secondary sources for the study of the science fiction and fantasy and associated genres.
Sophie Lancaster Foundation
The charity, known as The Sophie Lancaster Foundation, will focus on creating respect for and understanding of subcultures in our communities.
Supernatural Cities
Supernatural Cities is an interdisciplinary network of humanities and social science scholars of urban environments and the supernatural.
Supernatural Studies Association
The Supernatural Studies Association is an organization dedicated to the academic study of representations of the supernatural, the speculative, the uncanny, and the weird across periods and disciplines.
The Society for the Study of the American Gothic (SSAG)
The Society for the Study of the American Gothic (SSAG) was established in 2023 to promote and advance the study of the American Gothic through research, teaching, and publication
The Thinker's Garden
we also love Plotinus and the Renaissance Platonists, as well as the Transcendentalists and Romantics. We are also drawn to the peculiarities of the Theosophists and hermeticists of the nineteenth century
Vamped
Vamped is a general interest non-fiction vampire site. We publish interviews, investigations, lists, opinions, reviews and articles on various topics.
Vampire Studies Association
TThe Vampire Studies Association (VSA) was founded by Anthony Hogg . . .“to establish vampire studies as a multidisciplinary field by promoting, disseminating and publishing contributions to vampire scholarship
Victorian Popular Fiction Association
The Association is committed to the revival of interest in understudied popular writers, literary genres and other cultural forms.
Wells at the World's End
I am reading through the complete works of H G Wells, in chronological order. This blog is for my jottings, as I go along.
YA Literature, Media, and Culture
YALMC is a resource for those of us researching, writing, writing about, interested in Young Adult Literature, Media, and Culture.
YA Studies Association (YASA)
The YA Studies Association (YASA) is an international organisation existing to increase the knowledge of, and research on, YA literature, media, and related fields