We are thrilled to announce the programme of this year’s Gothic Feminism conference. A huge thanks for everyone who submitted an abstract and for all those speakers who have agreed to participate.
The programme is also available to view here.
Gothic Feminism presents:
Women-in-Peril or Final Girls? Representing Women in Gothic and Horror Cinema
24th – 26th May 2017
University of Kent
PROGRAMME
Wednesday 24th May
09:00 – 09:30 Registration
09:30 – 9:45 Welcome and Opening Remarks
9:45 – 11:00 Keynote Speech – Dr Xavier Aldana Reyes (Manchester Metropolitan University):
‘What Final Girls Did Next: Horror Heroines in the Age of Postfeminism’
11:00 – 11:30 Tea & coffee break
11:30 – 13:00 Papers 1: The Gothic and Horror of Crimson Peak
‘Taking the Final Girl Backwards: Femininity and Abjection in Del Toro’s Crimson Peak’ – Marine Galiné (University of Reims-Champagne-Ardenne)
‘Don’t Call it a Horror Film: The Uses of the Gothic in Crimson Peak’ – Matt Denny (University of Warwick)
‘The Presence of Absence: The Supernatural Gothic of Crimson Peak’ – Frances A. Kamm (University of Kent)
13:00 – 14:00 Lunch
14:00 – 16:00 Papers 2: Split Identities
‘“Sins? What Sins? I am a Scientist I Cannot Sin”: Exploring Thematic Dichotomies in the Filmic Representation of Mary Shelley’ – Linda McCarthy (University of East Anglia) and Richard Sheppard (University of Wales)
‘Silver Spangles in Her Eyes: The Gypsy Outlaw and Female Fantasy in the Gainsborough Gothics’ – Carolyn King (Independent Scholar)
‘“The Human Component in a Turing Test” Monstrous Final Girl-in-Peril: Creating Gothic Horror Through Setting and Character in Ex Machina” – Rebecca Jones (De Montford University)
‘Dead Girls on Film: Murder, Media and Nostalgia’ – Katherine Farrimond (University of Sussex)
16:00 – 16:30 Tea & coffee break
16:30 – 18:00 Papers 3: Age
‘A “Child-Friendly” Horror Aesthetic: Coraline as Female Gothic and Slasher Film’ – Catherine Lester (University of Warwick)
‘Matron or Nanny: Representations of Older Women in Modern British Gothic Horror Films’ – Natasha Parcei (Leeds Beckett University)
‘That Cold Day in the Park: A Countercultural Gothic’ – James Kloda (Freeland Writer and Journalist)
18:00 – 19:00 Cake and wine reception
Thursday 25th May
09:30 – 11:00 Papers 4: Bewitching the Body
‘The Terrifying and the Teenage: How Possession Films Reflect the Societal Fear of Young Women’s Sexuality and Agency’ – Hannah Granberry (University of Colorado Boulder)
‘“Wouldst Thou Like to Live Deliciously?”: Gothic Feminism and the Final Girl in The Witch’ – Victoria Madden (University of Edinburgh)
‘Witches, “Bitches” or Feminist Trailblazers? Tracing Interpretation of the Witch from Piers Haggard’s Blood on Satan’s Claw (1971) to Robert Egger’s The Witch (2016)’ – Chloé Germaine Buckley (Manchester Metropolitan University)
11:00 – 11:30 Tea & coffee break
11:30 – 13:00 Papers 5: Transgressive Women
‘The “Penultimate Girl” as Gothic Woman-in-Peril and Modernist Final Girl in Vincenzo Natali’s Haunter (2013) – Lee Broughton (Independent Scholar)
‘“Unsettling the Men”: The Representation of Transgressive Female Desire in Daughter of Darkness (1948)’ – Paul Mazey (University of Bristol)
‘Bewitched, Bedazzled and Bewildered: The Rituals of Witchcraft in The Neon Demon’ – Jennifer Richards (Manchester Metropolitan University)
13:00 – 14:00 Lunch
14:00 – 16:00 Papers 6: International Gothic and Horror
‘From Gothic Ballet to Horror at the Opera: The Endangered Female in Dario Argento’s Suspiria and Opera’ – Maria Giakaniki (Independent Scholar)
‘Miss Christina: From Mircea Eliade’s Novella to the Romanian Gothic Big-Budget Production’ – Oana-Maria Mazilu (University of Kent)
‘La Fille Final: The Final Girl in Contemporary French Horror Cinema’ – Maddison McGillvray (York University, Canada)
‘“The Saviour Who Came to Tear My Life Apart”: Queer Subjectivity and Reparative Paranoia in Chan-wook Park’s The Handmaiden’ – Robyn Ollett (Teeside University)
16:00 – 16:30 Tea & coffee break
19:00 Film Screening (TBC) Ticket not included in registration fee
Friday 26th May
09:30 – 11:00 Papers 7: Post-Gender
‘Martyrs: The Defacement of Gender in a Monstrous Female Melodrama’ – Katerina Flint-Nicol (University of Kent)
‘Virgins and Vampires: The Ambiguous Women of Jean Rollin’s Gothic Dreams’ – Virginie Guichard (Westminster School)
‘The Final Girl of 21st-Century EcoGothic Cinema’ – Dawn Keetley (Lehigh University)
11:00 – 11:30 Tea & coffee break
11:30 – 13:00 Papers 8: Gothic Horror on TV
‘Demonic Possession, Gothic Suspicion and the Homme Fatale in Buffy the Vampire Slayer’ – Louise Child (Cardiff University)
‘The Women of Penny Dreadful: Gothic, Horror, and the Melodramatic Imagination’ – Alison L. McKee (San José State University)
‘Jamaica Inn: Simplifying Gender, Simplifying Genre’ – Holly Hirst (Manchester Metropolitan University)
13:00 – 14:00 Lunch
14:00 – 15:30 Papers 9: Gothic and Horror in Unexpected Locations
‘Gone Girl: Gender, Sexuality, and Horror in Gone Home’ – Andra Ivanescu (Brunel University and Anglia Ruskin University)
‘Rambler, Mother, Killer: Alice Lowe’s subversion of the Gothic Heroine in Sightseers and Prevenge’ – Lawrence Jackson (University of Kent)
‘“Sarge! She’s as hard as a rock!” – “You don’t have to tell me that. I’ve been married to her for fifteen years!” or How the Role of the Gothic Woman is Represented in Carry on Screaming!’ – Steven Gerrard (Leeds Beckett University)
15:30 – 16:00 Final remarks and closing of conference
16:00 – 16:30 Tea & coffee
Gothic Feminism 