I am just back from attending the Urban Gothic Conference at Liverpool John Moore University on Saturday 24 April. The conference programme promised an interesting debate on a range of Gothic topics in relation to the city as haunted space, uncanny homelessness, postmodern and historical palimpsests and disturbed suburbia, amongst others; under the auspices of a beautiful (if not exactly Gothic), sunny day, the event unravelled as a great interdisciplinary forum, which exceeded my expectations and made the Saturday morning early rise more than worthwhile: accompanying t

Post-War Disjunctions in Domesticity: America, the Family and Gothic in the Bioshock and Fallout Videogame Series The distinctly American notion of Homely Gothic has been the subject of constant revision, adapting to the shift in where and how people live, and the way in which they defend this bastion of safety and symbolism. From Nathaniel Hawthorn to Cormack McCarthy, the American family has always been the subject of assault, invasion and violation, from both without and within. The modern American family, a symbol of the nation’s purity and assured future, has its origins in the

Satan Tastes like Chicken. Apparently.