Gothic Manchester Festival Conference 2017
Saturday 28 October 2017
Call for Papers
Gothic Style(s), Gothic Substance
After the great success of last year’s Gothic North conference, our attention turns this year to the topic of Gothic Style(s).
At the start of the twenty first century, the Gothic is ubiquitous. Fiction and film, television and graphic novels have not only made the Gothic’s plots and protagonists their own, but have brought Gothic style(s) even more firmly into the mainstream. Victorian Gothic architecture looms large over modern cities such as Manchester, contemporary Goth fashion and music tirelessly reference the mode, and our streets and bars, clubs and homes have generated new Gothic styles of their own.
But is there substance to the Gothic’s many styles? Does the Gothic continue to reveal the great unspoken truths of our world? Did it ever? Is the Gothic anything more than a commercial product that may be sold, as a recognisable style, to a new generation of consumers? Was it ever thus? What cultural functions do Gothic styles serve? And how have these evolved from the Enlightenment to the neoliberal present?
This one-day conference invites abstracts for papers of 20 minutes on any aspect of Gothic style(s) and / or substance. As such, topics may include, but are most certainly not limited to:
• Literary, Filmic and Popular-Cultural Stylistics – ‘authentic’ Gothic or merely stylistic flourish?
• The Gothic styles of art and architecture
• Gothic fashion – from subculture to haute couture
• The histories of Gothic styles
• Goth-style music, clubs and clubbers
• The singularity (or otherwise) of Gothic style
• The popular perception of Goth(ic) style – from Halloween dress-up to hate crime.
Please submit abstracts of no more than 300 words to Dr Linnie Blake, Head of the Manchester Centre for Gothic Studies, by 1 August 2017.
Email: L.Blake@mmu.ac.uk
