Danel Olson’s impressive collection, 21st Century Gothic, aims to encourage critical attention towards Gothic novels published since the year 2000. Noting the global spread of Gothic in the twenty-first century, the editor has consulted over 180 experts on the subject to help him compile a list of the 53 most significant Gothic novels from the first decade of the new century.

The Doorway’s capacity to open and close on ‘a Foreign Place’ (397) indicates the alien distance and total separation of whatever seeks to come through. X’s language indicates not only a ‘place’ but also an occupant; he concludes that ‘my quiet passing did disturb an Evil Power, so that it did even come to listen or to make search’ (400). The unidentified entity, lurking on the threshold, listens at the Doorway, and attempts to reach through. In this sequence, Hodgson transforms the benign communication of the séance, under the control of a professional medium, or the occultist’s magical manipulation of unseen forces, into the near-discovery of unspeakable destructive horrors.

This interview published in The Telegraph may of interest! http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/bath-childrens-literature/8782207/Roddy-Doyle-interview.html By Martin Chilton Roddy Doyle's recent book of short stories, Bullfighting, captured wonderfully the vaguely comic despair of middle-aged manhood. When I told him I'd enjoyed the book, Doyle replied: "If it's happening, you may as well use it. I just wish more middle-aged men would buy bloody books." There doesn't seem much that Doyle can't let his imagination roam around and transform into beautiful, mo

Today's issue of the British Guardian newspaper includes an interesting article on the precise date and time on which Mary Shelley is said to have dreamed up the idea behind Frankenstein.    Scientists, using precise astronomical information and dating techniques, have managed to corroborate her account of the moonlight that shone through her window on that fateful night in July 1816.  Full the report, read here.

The currently ubiquitous (and wonderful) Dominic West stars alongside Rebecca Hall in Nick Murphy’s forthcoming film ‘The Awakening’, due for UK cinema release on the 11 November 2011.  I don’t know too much about this film, but the pair seem to be portrayed as a sort of early 20th Century Mulder and Scully – he is a believer, she is a sceptic.  Imelda Staunton also stars, and she can put a chill up anyone’s spine. Going on the trailer alone this looks really good, so fingers crossed.  Despite the story and timescale being completely different, there is something about this t

I am deeply fascinated at the moment by nineteenth-century Gothic sea fiction, particularly its phantoms, wrecks, and derelicts. The long nineteenth-century, as we know, saw tremendous social, industrial, and scientific developments, including the replacement of wooden sailing ships by steel and steam. The ghosts of the Age of Sail still haunted our seas; wooden derelicts trapped in the currents accounted for many a phantom ship sighting, says Margaret Baker, yet by the 1930s, these were all destroyed. These ghosts remain in our literature, and in our film.

First Annual Studies in Gothic Fiction Conference March 16-17, 2012 National University, San Diego, CA. As interest in Gothic studies grows exponentially, what is considered Gothic and how we define it continues to evolve. At this conference we will explore not only the origins of the Gothic, but the evolution of the genre. Papers which explore any aspect of the Gothic in literature, film, and other media are encouraged. Topics which could be explored include: * Origins of the Gothic * Commercialization of the Gothic * Trade Gothic * Romanticism and the Gothic * Victorian Got

In a move that will be welcomed  by scholars of the Gothic and of the eighteenth century in general, Yale University has recently digitalised, in fully searchable format, all 48 volumes of W. S. Lewis's scholarly edition of the correspondence of Horace Walpole.  Access to the material is free. For a link to the announcement and the data-base, click here.

Gregoriou, Christiana. Language, Ideology and Identity in Serial Killer Narratives. Reviewed by Samantha Walton, University of Edinburgh. If serial killer narratives now rival narratives of detection in popularity in British and American popular culture, the heroisation of the serial killer, a figure considerably less sympathetic than most fictional detectives, can be seen as a marker of a significant declivity in the contemporary imagination which demands interrogation. Using linguistic analysis sensitive to naming, metaphor and transitivity, in Language, Ideology and Identity in Serial

My aim with this series is to draw attention to some of the best examples of ‘gothic gaming’ produced over the years. Whilst video games have become a universally recognised academic field, there is still a considerable gap between their current circulation and the cultural space held by other forms of media such as books and films. In the first part of what I hope will be an interesting and informative series, I will be examining Clive Barker’s Undying, arguably one of strongest examples of gothic adaptation yet seen in video gaming. Undying was one of the first games to use the first person perspective to connect players’ experience directly to the world of the game, boasting one of the most immersive and atmospheric representations of ‘period horror’ story-telling yet conceived in a video game.