Some interesting online events coming up along with some prerecorded ones, plus another Byron CFP. Be warned: the first two events are very soon–Monday and Tuesday!
1. Radcliffe Beyond Udolpho, The Gothic Women Project, 29 November 2021.
For the November Gothic Women seminar, we will be looking into Radcliffe’s identity as an author beyond just The Mysteries of Udolpho and exploring her legacy in the Gothic at large.
Elizabeth Bobbitt, Ann Radcliffe: Looking Beyond the 1790s to Radcliffe’s Later Works
Deborah Russell, The Politics of Place in The Castles of Athlin and Dunbayne
Angela Wright, The Afterlives of The Mysteries of Udolpho
2. Mermaids: Fish, Flesh or Fowl?, The Folklore Society, 30 November 2021.
What is a mermaid? Nothing so simple as a woman with a fish’s tail. Mythology, symbolism, literature, art, folktale and ballad have all influenced her development, and male attitudes to women are key to both her vulnerability and her power. A talk by Sophia Kingshill.
3. CFP: Byron and Loss, Byron Society Annual Conference, Newstead Abbey, 23-24 April 2022. Deadline: 1 February 2022.
Postponed since 2020, this conference aptly marks the bicentenary of a troubling year plagued by loss. George III had lost his life and, many would argue, George IV lost what little shreds remained of his dignity, pursuing his errant wife with hypocritical vengeance during the so-called Queen Caroline Affair. The monarchy and government had lost the trust of the people, and many of them would have lost their lives had the Cato Street Conspiracy succeeded. Meanwhile Byron, now in the fourth year of his self-imposed exile, was rapidly losing his hair, teeth, famous good looks, and – some might argue – his dignity. It is against this backdrop that he became interested in Italian politics, or rather the loss of political authority and national autonomy. To mark the year of 1820, and in recognition of the troubling experiences of the past two years, we welcome papers considering the theme of Byron and loss.
4. Gothic Excursions, Disrupted Histories; Montreal Monstrum Society, Fall 2021
Online lectures:
Ken Russell’s Gothic: Tone, Mode and the Limits of Art-Horror
Joan Hawkins
Virgins and Vampires: Jean Rollin’s Female Transgressors and Gothic Subversion
Virginie Selavy
Race and the Gothic Past in Jewell Gomez’s The Gilda Stories
and Tananarive Due’s My Soul to Keep
Dara Downey
Painting with Light in Kathryn Bigelow’s Near Dark: Vampires, Chiaroscuro, and a New Type of Gothic
Stacey Abbott
5. The Character Assassination of Haiti, Co-sponsored by Haitian Studies Association and In Cultured Company
This event took place on 1 November 2021 but is available on line.
Join us on Monday, November 1, at 8:00 pm EST, in celebration of Fèt Gede (Haitian Day of the Dead), Dr. Samuel Cruz and Nyya Flores Toussaint ’19 will host a discussion about how Haiti’s social, political, and spiritual context is wrongly contextualized as being a result of the 1791 Vodou ceremony at Bwa Kayiman that marked the beginning of the Slave Rebellion and Haitian Revolution.
Since Haiti’s successful establishment of the second nation-state in the Americas, Bwa Kayiman has been falsely claimed as Haiti making a pact with the devil in order to be emancipated and independent. This conversation will critically analyze the role imperialism, Christianity, and anti-Blackness have had on Haiti’s current politics, history, and spirituality.
