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Dr Meaghan Allen

@morbidmae.bsky.social

Doctorate: ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’, blood & the (crypto)medieval | Medieval(ism) | History of Science & Medicine | History of Crime | House ghoul | damesmacabre.com

35 Posts85 Follower162 Folgt
Josh Coulthard@joshcoulthard.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Featuring papers by @morbidmae.bsky.social, Anna Pririe @celinaberill.bsky.social, Poppy Philligreen, George Fowles, Jomar de Vrind, @emma-nelson.bsky.social, James Davison, @dr-r0bert.bsky.social, @edjfm.bsky.social, me, and Anna Probert!

North West Medieval Studies Postgrad Network@northwestmedieval.bsky.social · 2mo ago

The annual North West Medieval Studies Symposium is back: for our fifth anniversary we have not one but two colour schemes. Join us down the rabbit hole on the 4th of August in @chethamslibrary.bsky.social in Manchester. Register below and pick your side: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

NWMS NETWORK PRESENTS NWMS SYMPOSIUM OUTSIDE THE SCOPE OF THIS PAPER This year’s annual NWMS PGR symposium marks its fifth anniversary by taking inspiration from a familiar academic experience: getting lost down a research rabbit hole. Showcasing the research of postgraduates and ECRs both from the North West and from those interested in supporting Medieval Studies in the North West. The symposium draws together scholars working on history, archaeology, art history, literature, and musicology. As well as ranging geographically from the sagas of Iceland to Polish saint’s lives; and chronologically from dark age British stone sculptures to the life records of a 15th century chronicler, as well as taking us into the present day to reflect on the afterlives of the Middle Ages through the work of Tolkien. The symposium will take place in Chetham’s Library in Manchester and will feature an encounter with some of the library’s archival collections as well as lunch and snacks. 10am - 4pm 4th August 2026 Chetham’s Library Long Millgate, Manchester M3 1SB
Ellesse Patterson 🐝@elpatterson.bsky.social · 3mo ago

In October, the upcoming PGR-led conference, Dark Enchantments: Gothic Folklore and the Monstrous Fairy-Tale, will be held at the University of Sheffield. Interested in getting involved? Follow the QR code and send us your abstracts by the end of July! 🦇👻 (Risen from the🪦 with a new QR code).

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Dr Meaghan Allen@morbidmae.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Scott Midson casually dropping these philosophical heavy hitters (plus Levinas!) during his talk about Human(oid) robots in the sweltering heat at the “(Re)Iamaging Faces” conference today held by Manchester Museum and Creative Manchester.

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Siobhán Jolley@siobhanjolley.bsky.social · 5mo ago

Learned from my publisher that my new book dropped early in the National Gallery shops today! If you would like to look at nice pictures of Saints and learn fun things about them, this is the one for you.

Saints on a bookshelf in the NG shop.
Order of the Good Death@ordergooddeath.bsky.social · 7mo ago

1. Here’s what we covered in this month’s Order Member newsletter! • Human composting finally takes root in NY, & why legalization wasn’t the finish line • When museums sanitize queer grief: what happens when context disappears from an AIDS-era masterpiece?

graphics with white background for the Order's February newsletter featuring a collage of various images inspired by the stories featured, including a science = death pin, an anatomical embroidery of a human head, a body being composted, cup of coffee in green mug, a human head fashioned out of natural elements like leaves and grass, and a hand holding a cell phone.
Kristof Smeyers@kristofsmeyers.bsky.social · 8mo ago

Hi everyone, I'm organising a conference in Leuven, 4-5 June, and you're all invited*! It's called 'Performing evil: the mediation and display of diabolic spectres 1700-2000' and here is the call for papers (get in touch if you'd like a pdf!). Please share widely! *to submit an abstract before 21/3

CALL FOR PAPERS: PERFORMING EVIL: the mediation and display of diabolic spectres, 1700-2000'. 4 & 5 June 2026, Leuven. This conference explores the tangled histories of supernatural, diabolic evil and all kinds of spectral apparitions in the last three centuries – Walter Scott’s ‘malignant and unhappy beings’. Specifically, it is interested in how and why ghosts, spirits and related apparitional phenomena were framed as diabolic, demonic or malign manifestations from the afterlife. Diabolic connotations of ghosts and spirits did meaningful cultural work. They were mobilised to discredit ghost beliefs and spiritual practices, to delegitimise competing beliefs, or to invest doctrinal arguments with occult authority. They could also function as tools of scepticism and ridicule as well as triggers of wonder, fear and religiosity. Put differently, the nexus of ghosts and evil is deeply historical. And it was often articulated through performative means: in gestures and expressions of (dis)belief, in visual and textual representations, in séance rooms, on the stage and on the page. Emerging from this nexus are theatrical spirits of evil, staged, embodied, and made legible through mediation and display. In this sense, every ghost is a theatrical ghost. Through the focus on the construction and staging of diabolic spirits, this conference aims to develop a methodological framework for studying historical forms of occultism and demonology more broadly in terms of performance.Exploring how the relationship of spectrality and evil has shifted in shape over time and across different cultures, the conference invites contributions that can consider a wide range of historical actors – clerics, mediums, ghost-hunters, debunkers, necromancers, stage performers, eyewitnesses. This conference aims to study cultural intersections and interactions to arrive at a more granular understanding of discursive, practical and material connections between spirits and evil. At the same time this lens zooms out, making visible broader dynamics of knowledge construction in specific historical moments. How, for instance, did hauntings and possessions shape communities and audiences? How did religious or folkloric ideas about the devil inform spectral encounters? We hope to bring together historians, art historians, theatre and literary scholars, folklorists and anthropologists from every stage in their career around the above questions. We welcome 20-minute papers on topics that include but are by no means limited to: - making spectral evil visible: performance, arts, media, technologies, popular cultures - making spectral evil invisible: popular and occult knowledge circulation - performing (un)belief: practices and rhetoric, summoning and debunking on the stage (from popular stages to the lecture hall and the laboratory) - materiality of spectres: the function of bodies and objects - diabolic spirits and (intellectual, vernacular, theological, folkloric) ideas about morality, mortality and temporality - occult performance and ‘cultural scripts’ of ghost encounters (from necromancy to poltergeists) - affect and emotions: fear, grief, trauma… and hope Send abstracts (c.250 words) and bios (c.100 words) to kristof.smeyers@kuleuven.be before 21 March 2026. Please do get in touch if you have any questions.