As Franco Moretti claims, 'monsters are metaphors'; their bodies standing in for the fears of a certain time and place. Jessie Givner in fact argues that it is the monster's ability to be seen as a metaphor that makes the creature particularly monstrous. Capitalism, with its seemingly magical market movements, lend itself very well to being described in metaphors. This blog post, the final of my three ones, will explore the economic system in which we live through the metaphor of the monster, examining such economic monsters both in Marx and in a more recent popular text: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997-2003).

What is a gothic body? Is there such as thing? Various scholars have theorised gothic embodiment and physical difference in gothic works, testifying to the specific corporeal side to the gothic. Bodies marked as different can, as evidenced in these works, become inextricable linked to the gothic or explored in gothic writing. This blog post will focus on a specific physical 'difference' or marked body, namely the body disabled by amputation. Examining Lon Chaney's characterisation of an amputee in The Unknown (1927), I will explore what amputation might mean when marked as different or other, and how amputation might take on different affective significations.

February was a stellar month for horror movies fans. The month of love saw romance outnumbered by its darker cousin and while there are fewer gothic releases in March, one or two of the listed films should be enough to see you through the month. The Bay Directed by Barry Levinson (Good Morning, Vietnam, Diner, Sleepers and Rain Man) and written by Michael Wallach, The Bay is a documentary styled ecological horror that sees chaos ensue after the water of a small Maryland town is found to contain a high level of toxicity. This toxicity is a mutant breed of the parasite Cymothoa exi

The University of Costa Rica, San Pedro campus, Costa Rica will host a 2-day conference on the theme of 'Dark Latitudes: Mapping Gothic Sites and Mediums' on 10-11 December 2013. The conference website, as well as further details concerning the submission of abstracts, is to be found here.

February is proving to be a promising month for celluloid horror. Listed below are February releases and while most have been widely advertised, there are a few less popular films that stand out amongst the “stock horror” of contemporary movie theatres. Antiviral and Chained are set for limited release, however, they are the most notable on this list. The first for the cinematic ingenuity of another Cronenberg, and the latter for its exploration of childhood exposure to gruesome violence. The trailers are linked below for your perusal: Antiviral A Cronenberg film through and through,

8th February 2013 is the UK release date for the film adaptation of Isaac Marion’s debut novel Warm Bodies. Understandably, the story of “R”, the romantic undead protagonist, and his love interest Julie, has mistakenly been compared to that of Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight Saga. This misunderstanding has been aided by Meyer’s lauding endorsement on the front cover of the novel and the way in which the film has been advertised with very “Twilight-esque” posters. However, Twilight and Warm Bodies are both produced by Summit Entertainment and suggested similarities between the two

Cannibals populate ancient myths, fairy tales, children’s literature, tales of survival, and lots of horror films. This preoccupation with orality is suggestive of the underlying warning in many Gothic urban cannibal tales – rapacity is monstrous. Hunger becomes more than a need for food, it becomes an expression of deep-seated desires for connections and of uneasiness with the modern condition. This is particularly evident in city narratives where isolation and anonymity lead to a sense of a fragmented existence and a deep need to create a sense of wholeness. Can these Gothic biters say something about modern isolation, urban anonymity, and the privileging of consumption in contemporary society?

I am co-curating an exhibition on Victorian Medievalism at Exeter’s Royal Albert Memorial Museum (RAMM), from September 2014-March 2015.  The AHRC generously awarded us a substantial sum of money toward researching and borrowing pieces for this exhibition. As these things go, pieces from other galleries have to be ordered quite far in advance, so I’m thinking about what fabulously gothic, medieval paintings, objects, architectural drawings, illustrated books (think William Morris’s wonderful Kelmscott Press productions) to request. NOTE: Please note any suggestions for materials for

In a recent blog, Marie Mulvey-Roberts rightly observed that Frankenstein has had a resurgence (again!) and she writes: 'Much has been written about the monster in psycho-biographical terms as a manifestation of maternal guilt or grief or as an attempt to resurrect her dead mother .... The building of the monster has been seen as a recreation of Mary Shelley herself.' HATE. Sorry, had to get that out. I know this is an oft-visited debate, but along with the resurrection of interest in Frankenstein, there has been a resurrection in psycho-biographical readings - in the press, in popu

The very nature of digital textuality always affords its re-writing and retroactive editing. Not only do its texts account for haunted spaces and happenings, it is itself the medium through which haunting occurs. Digital textuality – or code – is haunted metaphorically in that it encrypts the presence of other texts to conjure up their resources and display graphics or animation, and perhaps literally – as the ‘BEN, Drowned’ documents claim. Before explaining who or what BEN is, it’s necessary to outline the technical terms which describe Creepypasta and its supposedly paranormal subject.