Stirling University Presents

Welcome to the world of Gothic literature and culture

 

 

 

More than just a literary or cinematic genre, the lively Gothic mode informs our everyday lives as much as it eerily entertains it. Ghosts, vampires, sublime landscapes and ancient castles are familiar images we love to celebrate during those candlelit hours which provide small comfort before dawn. Beneath these surface apparitions, however, the Gothic imagination provides contemporary culture with far more than just phantasmatic terrors: Gothic names identify bizarre sea-life in the less-charted realms of marine biology; Gothic challenges our interaction with nature; it champions the dispossessed and queers the notion of the normative. In its medical and legal encounters, Gothic articulates alternative ethical systems challenging social stigma, and through fashion and architecture, it doesn’t shy away from being different.

 

In this one-day event, leading scholars of the dark arts present a series of workshops and short presentations on the wonderful and strange world of Gothic, interspersed with live-readings of some favourite spooky stories. Our speakers are all postgraduate researchers and lecturers at the University of Stirling, an institution internationally renowned for its contributions to Gothic research. Several of these speakers will also be presenting their research at the International Gothic Association Bi-Annual Conference in Vancouver, Canada this July.

 

This is a unique fundraising event located at the stunning MacRoberts Arts Centre venue (The Playhouse). We will be raising money to support the wonderful work Epilepsy Scotland do, promoting ways to further medical research into this often debilitating neurological condition. A representative will be available on the day, and a closing talk by Benjamin E. Noad will focus on the relationship between Gothic writing and epilepsy. To find out more about Epilepsy Scotland please click here.