Gothic

GFT February 17 and 18: Don't miss it!

From criticism to crime: recommended titles for all tastes

Post 1 (*suggested soundtrack: The Phantom Band, ‘Howling’*) Greetings all, and many thanks for having me as guest blogger this month. It’s most pleasant to be back, if only in a virtual sense (I did the M.Litt back in 2001/2). I will examine the concept of Scottish Gothic over the next few weeks, as recent research has rekindled my misgivings regarding the notions of distinctiveness and even exceptionality that some previous critics have ascribed to the Gothic as manifested in Scottish texts. I would very much appreciate your thoughts on this. I propose to introduce and di

  Photographic Hauntings: The poetic images of Francesca Woodman   Stasis in darkness…   1976   …Black sweet blood mouthfuls, Shadows. Something else   Hauls me through air – Thighs, hair; Flakes from my heels.   White Godiva, I unpeel – Dead hands, dead stringencies.   And now I Foam to wheat, a glitter of seas. The child’s cry   Melts in the wall. And I Am the arrow,   The dew that flies Suicidal, at one with the drive Into the red… (Sylvia Plath, From Ariel)   From A

BBC Three Series

By Dr Andrew J. Sneddon

In a technocracy, tools play a central role in the thought-world of the culture. Everything must give way, in some degree, to their development. … Tools are not integrated into the culture; they attack culture. They bid to become culture. Neil Postman, Technopoly: The Surrender to Technology (1992) I recently found myself watching the box-set of Battlestar Galactica (2004-present) and I was struck by the cultural relevance and indeed prophetic qualities of this re-envisioning of the iconic 1970s series, in particular in view of recent events in the Middle East and the attacks on Gaz

28-29 July 2009

I Put a Spell on You: From Screamin’ Jay Hawkins to Gothabilly  http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=orNpH6iyokI A black man enters the stage inside a coffin that is in flames. He is dressed in a leopard skin suit, Victorian shirt (sometimes he appears dressed as a vampire), has a bone in his nose, a rubber snake around his neck, and holds a smoking skull. He moans and groans, utters incomprehensible words, primitive growls. He sits at the piano while holding Henry (a skull with a cigarette in its mouth) and breaks into a deep, howling melody: I Put a Spell on You… This is rock an