Gothic Feminism presents:

Women-in-Peril or Final Girls? Representing Women in Gothic and Horror Cinema

24^th – 26^th May 2017

University of Kent

 

PROGRAMME

 

Wednesday 24^th May

09:00 – 09:30              Registration  

09:30 – 9:45                Welcome and Opening Remarks

9:45 – 11:00                Keynote Speech – Dr Xavier Aldana Reyes (Manchester Metropolitan University):

‘What Final Girls Did Next: Horror Heroines in the Age of Postfeminism’

 

11:00 – 11:30              Tea & coffee break                                      

11:30 – 13:00              Papers 1: The Gothic and Horror of Crimson Peak

‘Taking the Final Girl Backwards: Femininity and Abjection in Del Toro’s Crimson Peak’ - Marine Galiné (University of Reims-Champagne-Ardenne)

‘Don’t Call it a Horror Film: The Uses of the Gothic in Crimson Peak’ – Matt Denny (University of Warwick)

‘The Presence of Absence: The Supernatural Gothic of Crimson Peak’ – Frances A. Kamm (University of Kent)

13:00 – 14:00              Lunch                                                

14:00 – 16:00              Papers 2: Split Identities

‘“Sins? What Sins? I am a Scientist I Cannot Sin”: Exploring Thematic Dichotomies in the Filmic Representation of Mary Shelley’ – Linda McCarthy (University of East Anglia) and Richard Sheppard (University of Wales)

‘Silver Spangles in Her Eyes: The Gypsy Outlaw and Female Fantasy in the Gainsborough Gothics’ – Carolyn King (Independent Scholar)

‘“The Human Component in a Turing Test” Monstrous Final Girl-in-Peril: Creating Gothic Horror Through Setting and Character in Ex Machina” – Rebecca Jones (De Montford University)

‘Dead Girls on Film: Murder, Media and Nostalgia’ – Katherine Farrimond (University of Sussex)

16:00 – 16:30              Tea & coffee break                                      

16:30 – 18:00              Papers 3: Age

‘A “Child-Friendly” Horror Aesthetic: Coraline as Female Gothic and Slasher Film’ – Catherine Lester (University of Warwick)

‘Matron or Nanny: Representations of Older Women in Modern British Gothic Horror Films’ – Natasha Parcei (Leeds Beckett University)

‘That Cold Day in the Park: A Countercultural Gothic’ – James Kloda (Freeland Writer and Journalist)

18:00 – 19:00              Cake and wine reception     

 

Thursday 25^th May

09:30 – 11:00              Papers 4: Bewitching the Body

‘The Terrifying and the Teenage: How Possession Films Reflect the Societal Fear of Young Women’s Sexuality and Agency’ – Hannah Granberry (University of Colorado Boulder)

‘“Wouldst Thou Like to Live Deliciously?”: Gothic Feminism and the Final Girl in The Witch’ – Victoria Madden (University of Edinburgh)

‘Witches, “Bitches” or Feminist Trailblazers? Tracing Interpretation of the Witch from Piers Haggard’s Blood on Satan’s Claw (1971) to Robert Egger’s The Witch (2016)’ – Chloé Germaine Buckley (Manchester Metropolitan University) 

11:00 – 11:30              Tea & coffee break                          

11:30 – 13:00              Papers 5: Transgressive Women

‘The “Penultimate Girl” as Gothic Woman-in-Peril and Modernist Final Girl in Vincenzo Natali’s Haunter (2013) – Lee Broughton (Independent Scholar)

‘“Unsettling the Men”: The Representation of Transgressive Female Desire in Daughter of Darkness (1948)’ – Paul Mazey (University of Bristol)

‘Bewitched, Bedazzled and Bewildered: The Rituals of Witchcraft in The Neon Demon’ – Jennifer Richards (Manchester Metropolitan University)

13:00 – 14:00              Lunch                                    

14:00 – 16:00              Papers 6: International Gothic and Horror

‘From Gothic Ballet to Horror at the Opera: The Endangered Female in Dario Argento’s Suspiria and Opera’ – Maria Giakaniki (Independent Scholar)

‘Miss Christina: From Mircea Eliade’s Novella to the Romanian Gothic Big-Budget Production’ – Oana-Maria Mazilu (University of Kent)

‘La Fille Final: The Final Girl in Contemporary French Horror Cinema’ – Maddison McGillvray (York University, Canada)

‘“The Saviour Who Came to Tear My Life Apart”: Queer Subjectivity and Reparative Paranoia in Chan-wook Park’s The Handmaiden’ – Robyn Ollett (Teeside University)

16:00 – 16:30              Tea & coffee break                          

19:00                           Film Screening (TBC) Ticket not included in registration fee

 

Friday 26^th May

09:30 – 11:00              Papers 7: Post-Gender

‘Martyrs: The Defacement of Gender in a Monstrous Female Melodrama’ – Katerina Flint-Nicol (University of Kent)

‘Virgins and Vampires: The Ambiguous Women of Jean Rollin’s Gothic Dreams’ – Virginie Guichard (Westminster School)

‘The Final Girl of 21^st-Century EcoGothic Cinema’ – Dawn Keetley (Lehigh University)

11:00 – 11:30              Tea & coffee break                          

11:30 – 13:00              Papers 8: Gothic Horror on TV

‘Demonic Possession, Gothic Suspicion and the Homme Fatale in Buffy the Vampire Slayer’ – Louise Child (Cardiff University)

‘The Women of Penny Dreadful: Gothic, Horror, and the Melodramatic Imagination’ – Alison L. McKee (San José State University)

‘Jamaica Inn: Simplifying Gender, Simplifying Genre’ – Holly Hirst (Manchester Metropolitan University)

13:00 – 14:00              Lunch                                    

14:00 – 15:30              Papers 9: Gothic and Horror in Unexpected Locations

‘Gone Girl: Gender, Sexuality, and Horror in Gone Home’ – Andra Ivanescu (Brunel University and Anglia Ruskin University)

‘Rambler, Mother, Killer: Alice Lowe’s subversion of the Gothic Heroine in Sightseers and Prevenge’ – Lawrence Jackson (University of Kent)

‘“Sarge! She’s as hard as a rock!” – “You don’t have to tell me that. I’ve been married to her for fifteen years!” or How the Role of the Gothic Woman is Represented in Carry on Screaming!’ – Steven Gerrard (Leeds Beckett University)

15:30 – 16:00              Final remarks and closing of conference   

16:00 – 16:30              Tea & coffee