{"events":{"title":"Conference: Urban Gothic: Haunted Cities, Spectral Traces","slug":"conference-urban-gothic-haunted-cities-spectral-traces","summary":"The North Gothic Network presents a one-day conference in Liverpool, in partnership with Edinburgh Napier University, Liverpool John Moores University and Edge Hill University.","content":"

The North Gothic Network presents a one-day conference in Liverpool on 24th<\/sup> April 2010, in partnership with Edinburgh Napier University, Liverpool John Moores University and Edge Hill University.<\/p>

Gothic scholars are increasingly welcoming historicised studies of Gothic and literary criticism examining how Gothic tropes and modes are inflected for a particular time and place. Even more specifically, critics call for studies not only of historicised Gothic, but of localised Gothic.<\/p>

In a discussion of these recent trends, for example, Roger Luckhurst suggests that Gothic criticism pay fresh attention to the way location functions, for:<\/p>

'it is worth recalling that ghosts are held to haunt specific locales, are tied to what late Victorian psychical researchers ... termed \"phantasmogenetic centres\". This might suggest that the ghosts of London are different from those of Paris, or those of California.'<\/em><\/p>

This conference takes the specificity of urban \u2018phantasmogenetic centres' as an organising principle, aiming to explore particular representations of urban gothic in literature, film, television and graphic novels.<\/p>

Keynote speakers include Professor Sue Zlosnik (MMU), Dr Ben Highmore (Sussex), as well the illustrator and graphic artist, Gerry Gapinski.<\/p>

Download conference programme >><\/a><\/p>

Call for Papers<\/h2>

We invite abstracts for 20-minute papers focusing on identifying, untangling or savouring gothic representations of particular cities, both past and present.<\/p>

Proposals are welcomed on, but not limited to, the following topics:<\/p>