We recognise this is a very uncertain time and we at OGOM hope everyone is well and safe. Despite the barriers, academic life goes on and we have a few CFPs to advertise, plus some new resources added to the website.
1. First, there is OGOM’s own ‘Ill met by moonlight’: Gothic encounters with enchantment and the Faerie realm in literature and culture; this is planned for 8‒10 April 2021 at the University of Hertfordshire. We do hope you can attend–it will be fabulous! Submissions to be in by 30 October, 2020.
2. Call for Papers: Middle Eastern Gothics (edited volume under consideration at Wales University Press). Deadline: 1 June 2020.
What happens to a distinctly European literary mode such as the Gothic in the hands of authors whose encounters with Europe have been mediated, for centuries, by Orientalism, colonialism, and war – but who also lay claim to dark and macabre traditions in their own literatures? This is the compelling question that activates Middle Eastern Gothics
3. CFP: Gothic Nature III: New Directions in Ecohorror and the EcoGothic conference, 30 October 2020, University of Roehampton, London. Deadline: 12June 2020.
To celebrate the release of the second issue of Gothic Nature, we are holding a one-day symposium, generously hosted by the English and Creative Writing Department at The University of Roehampton, to bring together academics, artists, activists, and enthusiasts working in various ways with the subject of Gothic Nature. We are particularly keen to hear from those seeking to build on discussions raised in Issue One, as well as those eager to provide insights on themes as yet largely unexplored – such as the decolonisation of the ecoGothic, the Gothicity/horror of environmental science, media, and medicine, and the increasing imbrications between ecohorror/ecoGothic and environmental activism
4. CFP: Beyond Borders: Empires, Bodies, Science Fictions conference, London [no details given], 11-12 September 2020. Deadline: 15 June 2020.
For our 2020 conference, the LSFRC invites papers exploring borders in SF. We understand this theme broadly but are particularly interested in papers which address borders as politicised tools used to uphold empires, divide communities and police the bodies of those most marginalised. Our understanding of SF is likewise broad, and we in no way intend to use the traditionally acknowledged borders to the genre to exclude those whose work cannot be neatly defined by the term ‘science fiction.’
5. New Resources: we have added two interesting and useful links to the list that appears in the right-hand sidebar on the Home and Resources pages. One is to Dr Sam Hirst’s excellent site on Gothic Romance, which has a blog and details of book groups and online courses.
The second is to Texas A&M University’s Science Fiction and Fantasy Research Database, which is an excellent site that is ‘designed to help students and researchers locate secondary sources for the study of the science fiction and fantasy and associated genres. These include: historical material; books; articles; news reports; interviews; film reviews; commentary; and fan writing’.
Finally, I have added some more past papers of my own from conferences on our Repository page for talks and papers. These, I hope, may be a useful starting point for research, and give an idea of the direction OGOM research has taken. They cover aspects of the development of Gothic-inflected genres from Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto, through Dracula to Paranormal Romance. There are close readings of the contemporary YA novels, Alyxandra Harvey’s My Love Lies Bleeding (2009) and Julie Kagawa’s The Iron King (2010).
