As usual, this Romancing the Gothic conference will mix academic papers with workshops, an author roundtable and interactive events. Come to as much or as little as you want. Talks are recorded so even if you can’t come, you don’t miss it!
Saturday 3rd September (all times are BST/London Time)
9.30 – Introductions and opening notes
10.00 – 11.00 – Keynote with Gina Wisker: ‘Unnatural desires’? Women and Vampire Fictions.
11.30 – 13.15 – Panel 1: Carmilla and the Victorian Gothic
Panel chair: Aoife Dempsey
Papers:
Amy Jeffreys – The dangers of queer chambers :‘Carmilla’ and Nineteenth-century lesbian pathology
Madeline Potter – ‘Dreams and Feverish Sensations’: Blood, The Psyche, and Swedenborg in J.S. Le Fanu’s ‘Carmilla’
Brontë Schiltz – “There is nothing ever wrong with me”: illness and queerness in “Carmilla” and “Manor”
Sean O’Rourke – Exsanguinating Reality: How Carmilla Disrupts and Siphons Power from her Victims’ Constructed Reality
13.30 – 15.30 – Lunch
15.30 – 17.00 – Panel 2: Latin American Vampires
Panel Chair: Valeria Villegas Lindvall
Papers:
Paulina Odeth Flores Bañuelos – “Women in Darkness: The Relocation of Le Fanu’s Carmilla to the Mexican context in Alucarda, la hija de las tinieblas”
Ana Resende – ‘Ce n’est pas du sang, c’est du rouge’: A fin-de-siecle Vampire in ‘The Neurosis of Color [A nevrose da cor]’ by Júlia Lopes de Almeida
Alannah Ari Hernandez – Reimagining the Path to Female Vampirism: Broken Hearts and Ontological Adaptations in Isabel by Carmen Boullosa
17.30 – 19.00 – Panel 3: Queer Reimaginings
Panel Chair: Roan Parrish
Hannah O’Flanagan – ‘The Legacy of Carmilla: the sapphic vampire in the 20th and 21st Century’
Raquel Carvajal-Ariza – ‘You were seeking me, your own affinity’: Sarah Waters’ (Re)vision of Carmilla’s Victorian Lesbian Relationships
Kristen Tollan – Carmilla (The Webseries): A sapphic stake through the heart of the “bury your gays” trope
19.00 – 20.00 – Author Roundtable: Reimagining the Female Vampire with Zen Cho, Hailey Piper, S D Simper and other authors to be confirmed
20.30 – 22.00 – Vampire Soiree (includes costume competition and cocktail/mocktail making) with Julia O’Connell
Sunday 4th September
9.45 – Welcome
10.00 – 11.30 – Panel 4: Gaming the Vampire
Panel Chair:
Papers:
M K Pinder – Vampire Dating Sim – The eco-technology of queer vampires in video games
Kyria Van Gasse – ‘Every king needs a queen’: Creating and playing female character in the role-playing game Vampire the Masquerade
Bianca Crişan – Lady Dimitrescu: Echoes of Female Vampire Villains
12.00 – 14.00 – Vampire Food with Allie Pino (co-author of The Gothic Cookbook). Talk and cooking demonstration. Lunch.
14.30 – 15.30 – ‘Flattered his national partialities’: Folklore and Fairytale in Carmilla and Beyond’ – Second Keynote with Aoife Dempsey
16.30 – 18.00 – M. Belanger – Full of Whims and Fancies: The Gothic Tale Reimagined for Modern Gaming
Haunted by your perfect story idea? Consider a different format if the novel’s not working for you: journaling games. A recent spin on the old choose-your-own-adventure stories, journaling games are a variant of roleplaying game that invite the reader to collaborate on the story — and Gothic tales are perfect for this format. Bring your haunted houses, your locked doors, your peculiar families brimming with secrets and let’s play.
18.00 – Closing Address
My Wild Heart Bleeds 