Gothic in a Time of Contagion,
Populism and Racial Injustice
March 10-13, 2021
Conference Programme
Time Zone Abbreviations (used below)
NA-P = North America, Pacific Time NA-E = North America, Eastern Time
UK = United Kingdom Time EUR = Time for most of Europe
TH = Thailand Time JPN = Japan Time
AUS = SE Australia Time (Sydney, etc.) NZ = New Zealand time
All times are on the 24-hour clock (1:00-24:00) so that 1:00pm = 13:00 and so on
(All times in bold parentheses after each presenter’s name indicate the local time
on the 24-hour clock at which the session begins in the time zone of that presenter)
Wednesday, March 10
(with some session times in some zones extending into Thursday)
Co-Hosts Welcome (recorded) Sean Zwagerman and Melek Ortabasi, SFU
Co-Chairs Welcome (recorded) Jerrold Hogle, John Whatley, IGA Presidents
7:00 NA-P / 10:00 NA-E / 15:00 UK / 16:00 EUR / 22:00 TH // 24:00 JPN/ 2:00 AUS
1. 18th Century Gothic: Whig Populism, Revolution, and the Discourse of Disease
Chair: Jerrold E. Hogle Co-chair: Nida Tiranasawasdi
Kay Chronister, University of Arizona (8:00), 'Not One of Those Savage Tyrants': The
Castle of Otranto and the Goth in England
Alexandra Wagstaffe, McMaster University (10:00), Plunging into Error: The Mysteries of Udolpho and Being Informed in the Age of Covid-19
Rayna Rosenova, Sofia University, Bulgaria (17:00), “A virus of a new and unknown kind”: The French Revolution and the Discourse of Disease
8:15 NA-P / 11:15 NA-E / 16:15 UK / 17:15 EUR / 23:15 TH // 1:15 JPN / 3:15 AUS
2. Mary Shelley’s The Last Man I: The Infectiousness of Narrative, Populism, and Lyric
Chair: Jerrold E. Hogle Co-chair: David Punter
Jingsi Shen, University of Washington (8:15), Infectious Narrative: Giving Form to
Catastrophe in Mary Shelley’s The Last Man
David Sigler, University of Calgary (9:15), Populism, Time, and Contagion in Shelley’s The Last Man
Jack Rooney, Ohio State University (10:15), “Each moment contained eternity”: The
Contagion of the Lyric in Mary Shelley’s The Last Man
9:30 NA-P / 12:30 NA-E / 17:30 UK / 18:30 EUR // 24:30 TH / 2:30 JPN / 4:30 AUS
3. Mary Shelley’s The Last Man II: Three Post-secular Readings
Chair: Jerrold E. Hogle Co-chair: Rayna Rosenova
Kaitlin Mondello, Millersville University of Pennsylvania (12:30), Gothic Nature and
the Deconstruction of Difference in Mary Shelley’s The Last Man
Peter Long Kao, University of Aberdeen (17:30), A Post-secular Reading of Mary Shelley's The Last Man (1826)
Michael Cameron, Dalhousie University, Nova Scotia (12:30), “This Feeling Was
Infectious”: Contagion as Reactionary Populism in The Last Man and I Am Legend
10:45 NA-P / 13:45 NA-E / 18:45 UK / 19:45 EUR // 1:45 TH / 3:45 JPN / 5:45 AUS
4. Victorian-era Gothic I: The Contagions of Mental Illness, the East, and Touch
Chair: Paulina Palmer Co-chair: Monica Germana
Amreen Kohli, University of Edinburgh (18:45), The Contagion of Mental Illness in
Frankenstein, Jane Eyre, and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
Gwendolyn Faye Moore, University College Dublin (18:45), Eating the East: The Feared Dissolution of British Identity through Digestive Degradation in Sheridan Le Fanu’s “Green Tea” and Robert Louis Stevenson’s Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
Jay Sullivan, Roehampton University (18:45), ‘Untouched, Unchanged, Unstained’: Contaminating Touch in Richard Marsh’s The Beetle
12:00 NA-P / 15:00 NA-E / 20:00 UK / 21:00 EUR // 3:00 TH / 5:00 JPN / 7:00 AUS
Plenary Lecture -- Postapocalyptic Film and TV Capers: The Comedy Zombie and the (End of the) Neoliberal World
Linnie Blake, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK (20:00)
Session Chair: Sue Zlosnik, Manchester Metropolitan University (Emeritus)
Co-Chair: Sorcha Ní Fhlainn, Manchester Metropolitan University
14:30 NA-P /17:30 NA-E / 22:30 UK /23:30 EUR // 5:30 TH / 7:30 JPN / 93:0 AUS
5. Caribbean Gothic: Colonization and Tropical Maladies in the Americas
A panel organized and chaired by Cristian Soler. Co-Chair: Enrique Ajuria Ibarra
Cristian Soler, Stanford University (Iberian and Latin American Cultures) (14:30), Haunted Houses and Damsels in Distress: Specters of Colonialism in Oriana and The Manor of Araucaima
Mitch Therieau, Stanford University (Modern Thought and Literature) (14:30), Jean Rhys’s Gothic Jazz
Cynthia Laura Vialle-Giancotti, Stanford University (French and Italian) (14:30), Caribbean Witches and Zombies: De-colonizing Empire
Thursday, March 11
(with some session times in some zones extending into Friday)
24:00 NA-P / 3:00 NA-E / 8:00 UK / 9:00 EUR / 15:00 TH / 16:00 TAIWAN / 21:00 NZ
6. Eco-Gothic I: Infectious Sentences, the Inner Wolf, and Mother Earth
Chair: Agnieszka Soltysik Monnet Co-chair: Monica Germana
Hsu, Li-hsin, National Chengchi University (16:00), “Infection in the sentence breeds”: Ecogothic in Emily Dickinson and Chen Kehua
Sarah Worgan, Kingston University (8:00), Surplus Life in Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake
Amanda Rutherford, Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand (20:00), The Gothic Mother Earth and Apocalyptic text in Greenland
7:00 NA-P / 1000 NA-E / 15:00 UK / 16:00 EUR / 22:00 TH // 24:00 JPN / 2:00 AUS
7. Tales of the Un-dead: Premature Burials, Culinary Othering, and Degeneration
Chair: Jamil Mustafa Co-chair: David Punter
Aureo Lustosa Guerios Neto, University of Padua (16:00), Premature Burials in Literary texts about Epidemic Cholera from 1830 to 1900
Cameron Dodworth, Methodist University (10:00), Exotic Homogeneity: Culinary Othering in Dracula
Christine Haskill, Ferris State University, Michigan (10:00), Purity and Pollution: Race, Degeneration and Invasion in Dracula (1897) and Mexican Gothic (2020)
8:15 NA-P / 11:15 NA-E / 16:15 UK / 17:15 EUR / 23:15 TH // 1:15 JPN / 3:15 AUS
8. Gay/Lesbian/ Bisexual/Transgender Gothic I: Queer Pandemics and Contagions
Chair: Karen Macfarlane Co-chair: Antonio Alcalá Gonzales
Brontë Schiltz, Manchester Metropolitan University (16:15), “Mysterious Influences”: Queer Pandemics in the Gothic Fin de Siècle
Paulina Palmer, University of Warwick (16:15), “Aids is like the plague; it has made people vicious. Everyone suspects everyone else”: Comparisons between the AIDS virus and the bubonic plague in Vincent Brome’s Love in the Plague (2001)
9:30 NA-P / 12:30 NA-E / 17:30 UK / 18:30 EUR // 24:30 TH / 2:30 JPN / 4:30 AUS
9. Eco-Gothic II: Contaminated Ethics, the Inner Wolf, and the Ingestion of the Other
Chair: Mariaconcetta Costantini Co-chair: Cynthia Sugars
Natasha Rebry Coulthard, University of Lethbridge, Canada (10:30), Contaminated Ethics and Gothic Environmental Discourse
Caitlin Duffy, Stony Brook University (12:30), “Embrace your inner wolf”: American Ecogothic Subjectivity
Gina Wisker, University of Bath (17:30), Contagion, ingestion and sustainability: Margaret Atwood’s ‘Thylacine Ragout’ (2006) and Daisy Johnson’s ‘Blood Rites’ (2016)
10:45 NA-P / 13:45 NA-E / 18:45 UK / 19:45 EUR // 1:45 TH / 3:45 JPN / 5:45 AUS
10. American Gothic I: Mass Infection in the Mathers and Nathaniel Hawthorne
Chair: Charles Crow Co-chair: Sue Zlosnik
Faye Ringel, US Coast Guard Academy (13:45), Portents, Pestilence, and Pox: The
Mathers’ Views of Plague
Maria Parrino, Independent scholar, Italy (19:45), “The contagion was spreading among the multitude”: Crowds, Laughter and Mass Infection in Hawthorne’s “My Kinsman, Major Molineux”
12:00 NA-P / 15:00 NA-E / 20:00 UK / 21:00 EUR // 3:00 TH / 5:00 JPN / 7:00 AUS
11. American Gothic II: Post WWII Displacement, Rabid Dogs, Racial Trauma, and Post-Disaster Tyranny
Chair: Agnieszka Soltysik Monnet Co-chair: Sue Zlosnik
Larissa Runyan, University of Arizona (13:00), Southern Gothic as “Horrifying” Critique: Americans’ Grotesque Attitudes Towards Post-WWII Refugees in Flannery O’Connor’s “The Displaced Person”
Ana Carolina Torquato, FAE University, Brazil (17:00), Rabid dogs as Vectors of Actual and Symbolic Contagion in Their Eyes Were Watching God and To Kill a Mockingbird
Matthew Crofts, University of Hull (20:00), “Don’t you know what people are capable of?!”: Gothic Tyranny in the Wake of Disaster [The Day of the Triffids, The Walking Dead, and the videogame Fallout 3]
14:30 NA-P / 17:30 pm NA-E / 22:30 UK / 23:30 EUR // 6:30 TH / 7:30 JPN / 9:30 AUS
12. Recent Gothic Films I: The Contagions of Horror, Recursivity, and Mimicry
Chair: Gilles Menegaldo. Co-chair: Cynthia Sugars
Enrique Ajuria Ibarra, Universidad de las Américas Puebla, Mexico (16:30), Contagion and Horror: Urban Gothic and Uncanny Creatures in Guillermo del Toro’s Mimic (1997)
Jennifer Henderson, Carleton University, Canada (17:30), Feeling Gothic, Feeling Resilient: Dilemmas of Recursivity and Recuperation in Post-Statist Imaginaries [in the films of Jeff Barnaby (Mi’gmaw), Jordan Peele, and Cherie Dimaline (Métis)]
Krista Collier-Jarvis, Dalhousie University (18:30), History as Contagion: Blood Quantum (2019) and Haunting Back
Antonio Alcalá Gonzales, Tecnologico de Monterrey, Mexico City (16:30), Nautical Horror in 2020: Lovecraft’s Influence on William Eubank’s Underwater
16:00 NA-P / 19:00 NA-E //24:00 UK / 1:00 EUR / 7:00 TH / 9:00 JPN / 11:00 AUS
13. Gay/Lesbian/Bisexual/Transgender Gothic II: AIDS, Recombinant Gothic, and Homophobia in the Heartland
Chair: Jamil Mustafa Co-chair: Marta Maxwell Croll-Baehre
Ardel Haefele-Thomas, City College of San Francisco (16:00), Turning a Plague into Art: Gothic Imagery in AIDS Visual Art
Caitlin Palo, University of Washington (16:00), Recombinant Gothic: Dodie
Bellamy’s The Letters of Mina Harker (1998)
Christopher Weimer, Oklahoma State University (18:00), Corruption in the Heartland: Contagion, Sorcery, and Homophobia in Jordan L. Hawk’s Fallow (2016)
Thursday, March 11-Friday, March 12
17:15 (Th) NA-P / 20:15 NA-E // (Fr) 1:15 UK / 2:15 EUR / 8:15 TH / 12:15 AUS / 14:15 NZ
14. Gothic Television and Video I: Modern Horror, Miasmas, and Contagious Conflicts
Chair: Katarzyna Ancuta Co-chair: Karen Budra
Sarah Baker, Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand (14:15 Friday),
Contagious Horror, Parasites, Zombies, and Pandemics: From Alien to Fear the Walking
Dead
Jeffrey Andrew Weinstock, Central Michigan University (19:15), Particulate Matter, Miasma Theory, and Modern Horror: Penny Dreadful, Stranger Things, Silent Hill, and Get Out
Luke Chwala, Clemson University (20:15), Gothic Manifestations of Contagious Cultural Conflicts in American Horror Story, Seasons 7-8
Kate Warner, University of Queensland, Australia (12:15 Friday), Glitch and Cleverman: Gothic contestations of Australia’s past and future
18:30 (Th) NA-P / 21:30 NA-E // (Fr) 2:30 UK / 3:30 EUR / 9:30 TH / 11:30 JPN / 13:30 AUS
Plenary Lecture – What's so Global about the Gothic?
Andrew Ng Hook Soon, Monash University, Malaysia (10:30 Friday)
Session Chair: Katarzyna Ancuta, Chulalongkorn University, Thailand (9:30 Friday)
Co-chair: Nida Tiranasawasdi, also from Chulalongkorn University
19:45 (Th) NA-P / 22:45 NA-E // (Fr) 3:45 UK / 4:45 EUR / 10:45 TH / 12:45 JPN / 14:45 AUS
15. Asian Gothic: The Plagues of Opium, Viral Attack, Necro-ecology, and Political Strategy
Chair: Hsu, Li-hsin Co-chair: Karen Budra
Peter J. Church, University of Exeter and the Wellington College International School, Bangkok, Thailand (10:45 Friday), Opium: The Nineteenth Century ‘China Plague’ In the Essays of Thomas DeQuincey
Suntisuk Prabunya, Chulalongkorn University, Thailand (10:45), The Liberal Democratic Body under Communist Viral Attack: Body Politics, Affective Contagions, and the Cultural Politics of Cold War in Por Intharapalit’s “Songkram Chuerok” (1963)
Katarzyna Ancuta, Chulalongkorn University, Thailand (10:45), Necro-ecology: Death, Life, and Disease in Yan Lianke’s The Dream of Ding Village (2006) and The Years, Months, Days (1997)
Min-ster Lin, National Cheng-Kung University, Taiwan (11:45), Fear of Contagion as a Disciplinary Strategy in the Political Gothic Film Detention (2019)
Friday, March 12
(with some session times in some zones extending into Saturday)
1:00 NA-P / 4:00 NA-E / 9:00 UK / 10:00 EUR / 16:00 TH / 18:00 JPN / 20:00 AUS
16. Modern Theoretical Approaches to the Gothic: From Vitalism to Psychobiography
Chair: Gilles Menegaldo Co-chair: Marie Lienard-Yeterian
Chris Bundock, University of Essex (9:00), Gothic Life: Vitality and Form in Hans Driesch and William Worringer
Gregory Marks, LaTrobe University, Australia (20:00), Klaus Theweleit’s Gothic Psychobiography of Fascism in his Male Fantasies (1977)
2:15 NA-P / 5:15 NA-E /10:15 UK / 11:15 EUR / 17:15 TH / 19:15 JPN / 21:00 AUS
17. Recent Gothic Film II: The Threats of Contagion in Disasters, Hybridity, and Territorial Transgression
Chair: Agnieszka Soltysik Monnet Co-chair: Katarzyna Ancuta
Piraya Puapanichya, Thailand (17:15), Monstrous Nature: Hybridity,
Liminality and Contagion in Annihilation (2018) and The Ruins (2008)
David McWilliam, Keele University (10:15), The King of Nothing: Contagious Chaos and Gothic Dissent in Todd Phillips’s Joker (2019)
3:30 NA-P / 6:30 NA-E / 11:30 UK / 12:30 EUR / 18:30 TH / 20:30 JPN / 22:30 AUS
18. Early 21st-Century Gothic II: Feminism, Masculinity, and Social Unrest
Chair: Sue Zlosnik Co-chair: Aris Mousoutzanis
Sarah Olive, University of York (11:30), The Impact of Spreadable Feminism on Stephenie Meyer’s Midnight Sun: Is her vampire fiction fighting or incubating pandemic sexual and relationship violence?
Anastasia Lipinskaya, St. Petersburg State Forest Technical University (14:30), Beastkin and Man-things in Times of the Great Plague: C.L. Werner’s Skaven Wars
Agnieszka Łowczanin, University of Łódź, Poland (13:30), “We are granddaughters of the witches you failed to burn”: Gothic flavors of Social Unrest in Poland in the Midst of the Pandemic
5:30 NA-P / 8:30 NA-E / 13:30 UK / 14:30 EUR / 20:30 TH / 22:30 JPN // 24:30 AUS
19. Romantic-era Contagions: Morality, Trauma, Racism, and the Effects of Weather
Chair: Gilles Menegaldo Co-chair: Monica Germana
Charlotte Chassefière, Université Paul Valéry, Montpellier (14:30), “I am a pestilence, and spread ruin wheresoever I pass!”: Moral Contagion as a Threat to Cultural Hegemony in the Novels of Charlotte Dacre
Myron Chun-Chieh Tsao, National Chung Hsing University, Taiwan (21:30), “Did I Request Thee, Maker, from My Clay to Mold Me Man?”: Reading Frankenstein as Mary Shelley’s Traumatic Embodiment
Lisbeth Chapin, Gwynedd Mercy University, Pennsylvania (8:30), The Contagion of Ash: Weather, Racism, and Politics in the Time of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein
6:45 NA-P / 9:45 NA-E / 14:45 UK / 15:45 EUR / 21:45 TH / 23:45 JPN // 1:45 AUS
20. Irish Gothic: From Maria Edgeworth to Sheridan Le Fanu and Beyond
Chair: David Punter Co-chair: Michael Gamer
Cody Grey Belmont, Independent Scholar, “Balance Due”: Identity and Economic Scourge in Maria Edgeworth’s Castle Rackrent (1800)
Daniel J. Holmes, Villanova University (9:45), Essays on Metaphysical Medicine: Spiritual Infection and Its Treatment in Sheridan Le Fanu’s “Green Tea”
9:30 NA-P / 12:30 NA-E / 17:30 UK / 18:30 EUR // 24:30 TH / 2:30 JPN / 4:30 AUS
Plenary Lecture – “When you decide to leave, it's because you’re already dead”: Atlantique and the Planetary Gothic
Mark Deggan, Simon Fraser University, Canada (9:30)
Session Chair: John Whatley, Simon Fraser University
Friday, March 12-Saturday, March 13
19:30 (Fri) NA-P / 22:30 NA-E // (Sat) 3:30 UK / 4:30 EUR / 10:30 TH / 12:30 JPN / 14:30 AUS
21. Gothic Haunted Houses: Paradoxes, Contagions, and Infectious Manuscripts
Chair: Enrique Ajuna Ibarra Co-chair: Karen Budra
Danbee Isabelle Moon, University of Washington (19:30), Haunted Houses in The Haunting of Hill House and The Turn of the Screw
Samantha Landau, University of Tokyo (12:30 Saturday), Memory and Contagion in Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House
Stephen Webb, University of Alberta (20:30), Infection in the Script: The Ruinous Codex in Jeff VanderMeer’s Annihilation (2014) and Mark Danielewski’s House of Leaves (2000)
Saturday, March 13
(with some extensions into Sunday morning)
4:30 NA-P / 7:30 NA-E / 12:30 UK / 13:30 EUR / 19:30 TH / 20:30 TAIWAN / 23:30 AUS
22. Victorian-era Gothic II: Crises of Masculinity, Infectious Texts, and Imperial Racism
Chair: Mariaconcetta Costantini Co-chair: Hsu, Li-hsin
Yu-rong Cheng, National Chengchi University, Taiwan (20:30), Circumscribed
Masculinity: Male Weaknesses in Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre
Eloise Sureau, Butler University, Indiana (6:30), Infectious Humans, Infectious Text:
Maldoror
Michela Marroni, Tuscia University, Viterbo, Italy (13:30), “The Cursed Diamond” as the Representation of a Cultural Conflict: A Racial Interpretation of The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins
5:45 NA-P / 8:45 NA-E / 13:45 UK / 14:45 EUR / 20:45 TH / 22:45 JPN // 24:45 AUS
23. Early 20th-Century Gothic: Pandemic Confusions of Time, Rats, and Lovecraftian Sound
Chair: Karen Macfarlane Co-chair: Katarzyna Ancuta
James Aaron Green, University of Exeter (13:45), 'What a confusion! What an emotional, feverish, heated confusion!': Populism, Panic, and 'Pandemic Time' in The Blue Germ (1918)
Nida Tiranasawasdi, Chulalongkorn University, Thailand (20:45), From the City of Dust to the Waste Valley: Rats as the Threat of Contagion in Bram Stoker’s “The Burial of the Rats” and H.P. Lovecraft’s “The Rats in the Walls”
Stuart Lindsay, University of Stirling (13:45), Lovecraftian Music and the Experimental Sounds of Pedestrian Deposit
8:00 NA-P / 11:00 NA-E / 16:00 UK / 17:00 EU / 23:00 TH // 1:00 JPN / 3:00 AUS
24. The Gothic of Feminine Subversion: Contagious Ghosts, Viragos, and Rougarous
Chair: Sue Zlosnik Co-chair: Marie Mulvey-Roberts
Victoria Lord, Cardiff University (16:00), The Woman in Black: The Contagious Ghost Traversing the Novella, Stage and Screen
Alessandra Serra, Università della Tuscia, Italy (17:00), “She is Pestiferous”. Feminine Subversion and Contagion in the Penny Dreadful Gothic Landscape
June Scudeler, Simon Fraser University (8:00), “We Gotta Keep It in Balance:” The Rougarou as Anti-Contagion in Cherie Dimaline’s Empire of Wild (2019)
9:15 NA-P / 12:15 NA-E / 17:15 UK / 18:15 EU // 24:15 TH / 2:15 JPN / 4:15 AUS
25. Early 21st-Century Gothic II: Pandemics of Technology, Hybridity, Adolescence, and Consumption
Chair: Antonio Alcalá Gonzalez Co-chair: Cameron Dodworth
David Punter, University of Bristol (17:15), Pandemic, Technology, Pantechnicon
Deimantas Valanciunas, Vilnius University, Lithuania (19:15), Hybridity, Sexuality and Monstrosity in Indian Gothic: The Devourers (2015)
Leonie Rowland, Manchester Metropolitan University (17:15), “Why not kill? Everyone has their issues”: (Un)ending Adolescence in Fukasaku Kinji’s Battle Royale and Banana Yoshimoto’s ‘Mummy’
Megen de Bruin-Molé, University of Southampton (17:15), White Zombies: ‘Mindful’ Consumption, Neoliberalism, and White Privilege in Twenty-First-Century Zombie Fictions
10:45 NA-P / 13:45 NA-E /18:45 UK / 19:45 EU // 1:45 TH / 3:45 JPN / 5:45 AUS
26. Gothic Television and Video II: Anxieties Over the Environment, the Digital Image, and the “Other”
Chair: Sue Zlosnik Co-chair: Marie Mulvey-Roberts
Mariaconcetta Costantini, G. d'Annunzio University of Chieti-Pescara, Italy (19:45), Polar Contagion: Ecogothic Anxiety across Media in the Twenty-First Century
Xavier Aldana Reyes, Manchester Metropolitan University (18:45), Desktop Horror and the Crisis of the Digital Image in 21st Century Films
Rebecca Wynne-Walsh, Manchester Metropolitan University (10:15), Troubled Boundaries: Corporeal and Territorial Transgression in the Films Hunger (2008) and ‘71 (2015)
Matthias Stephan, Aarhus University, Denmark (19:45), “Men Against Fire”: An Exploration of Otherness, Identity, and Ethics in a Postmodern Age [on Episode 12 of Black Mirror]
12:00 NA-P / 15:00 NA-E / 20:00 UK / 21:00 EU // 3:00 TH / 5:00 JPN / 7:00 AUS
Plenary Lecture -- “You already dead”: America’s 400+ Year Pandemic
Maisha Wester, Indiana University, Bloomington, USA, and currently
British Global Academy Fellow, University of Sheffield, UK (20:00)
Session Chair: Jerrold E. Hogle, University of Arizona (Emeritus)
Conference End