A long forgotten vampire comedy by my grandad has been adapted into a tv series for the BBC. Very surreal, and incredible cast. Perhaps it’s not so strange after all that I ended up with a PhD in the Gothic! (I need to lobby them to include a psychic vampire for S2) www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/epis...

The Reluctant Vampire - First Look: Series 1

Coming soon. Lenny Rush stars in Eric Morecambe's spooky story with bite (or not)

bbc.co.uk

*New Magazine Alert* A WEIRD OCCASIONAL is "an occasional publication devoted to the weird, particularly the older and unknown stuff" - I have contributed a 14 page lead essay on the many crimes of M.P. Dare, cover art and a lost vampire story. Link: tinyurl.com/7c28rmdd

Final chapter! @janetteleaf.bsky.social shows how the sub-genre of spectral insects in Golden Age ghost stories inspire fear of what was once fleshly and is now transformed into the insubstantial and the exoskeletal. Bugs that go “Boo!” make the skin crawl like nothing else can. #NewDirections👻 🐜🕷🪳🐛

Dr Jen Baker@jendeavour.bsky.social · 3mo ago

*Very* excited that vol.1 of New Directions in the Ghost Story, edited by myself, @henrybartholomew.bsky.social & @joanpassey.bsky.social is out! Well done to all the contributors, and thanks for bearing with us! :) Please recommend to your academic libraries! link.springer.com/book/10.1007...

@jenniferschell16.bsky.social's chapter examines spectral whale tales circulating in contemporary print/visual culture of “ghost nets” & “ghost gear,” lost, abandoned, or discarded at sea; two different, yet viable, approaches to dealing with the precarity of life in the Necrocene 🐋 #NewDirections👻

Dr Jen Baker@jendeavour.bsky.social · 3mo ago

*Very* excited that vol.1 of New Directions in the Ghost Story, edited by myself, @henrybartholomew.bsky.social & @joanpassey.bsky.social is out! Well done to all the contributors, and thanks for bearing with us! :) Please recommend to your academic libraries! link.springer.com/book/10.1007...

Nick Freeman's chapter looks at critically neglected short stories by A.M. Burrage from 1920s/30s, arguing that he made a distinctive contribution to the ghost story genre through his use of humdrum settings & deliberately “ordinary” protagonists. #NewDirections👻

Dr Jen Baker@jendeavour.bsky.social · 3mo ago

*Very* excited that vol.1 of New Directions in the Ghost Story, edited by myself, @henrybartholomew.bsky.social & @joanpassey.bsky.social is out! Well done to all the contributors, and thanks for bearing with us! :) Please recommend to your academic libraries! link.springer.com/book/10.1007...

Ch10. Edmund Cueva examines inscriptions at eerie places that the Greeks and Romans may have visited for the thrill of encountering the supernatural and considers the parallels with this type of travel and the modern subindustry known as “dark tourism" #NewDirections👻

Dr Jen Baker@jendeavour.bsky.social · 3mo ago

*Very* excited that vol.1 of New Directions in the Ghost Story, edited by myself, @henrybartholomew.bsky.social & @joanpassey.bsky.social is out! Well done to all the contributors, and thanks for bearing with us! :) Please recommend to your academic libraries! link.springer.com/book/10.1007...

Ch9. @drbeard79.bsky.social positions BBC sitcom Ghosts (❤️) as ridiculous, theorising 'the ridiculous' as an alternative aesthetic experience to the sublime, eschewing its emphasis on individual magnificence in favour of collective laughter in which ghosts are silly, low, vulnerable #NewDirections👻

Dr Jen Baker@jendeavour.bsky.social · 3mo ago

*Very* excited that vol.1 of New Directions in the Ghost Story, edited by myself, @henrybartholomew.bsky.social & @joanpassey.bsky.social is out! Well done to all the contributors, and thanks for bearing with us! :) Please recommend to your academic libraries! link.springer.com/book/10.1007...

Ch6. Jayson Althofer examines Marx & Engels’s solidaristic observation and remembrance of the vocal, insistent afterlife of proletarian ghosts; the overlooked latent Gothic connotation—“the monstrous majority” of a monstrous collective of ghosts in their context and intertexts #NewDirections👻

Dr Jen Baker@jendeavour.bsky.social · 3mo ago

*Very* excited that vol.1 of New Directions in the Ghost Story, edited by myself, @henrybartholomew.bsky.social & @joanpassey.bsky.social is out! Well done to all the contributors, and thanks for bearing with us! :) Please recommend to your academic libraries! link.springer.com/book/10.1007...

Ch.5 @henrybartholomew.bsky.social brings ontography into contact with theoretical work on the spectral, to lay foundations for an ontographic hauntology/hauntography. He uses ontography to reconsider the aesthetics of time, space, eidos & essence in the literary ghost story. #NewDirections👻

Dr Jen Baker@jendeavour.bsky.social · 3mo ago

*Very* excited that vol.1 of New Directions in the Ghost Story, edited by myself, @henrybartholomew.bsky.social & @joanpassey.bsky.social is out! Well done to all the contributors, and thanks for bearing with us! :) Please recommend to your academic libraries! link.springer.com/book/10.1007...

Huge excitement! I've written a chapter on 'Bugs that go "Boo!", and my contributing author's copy of New Directions in the Ghost story arrived today. Thanks to fabulous editors & fellow writers @jendeavour.bsky.social @joanpassey.bsky.social @henrybartholomew.bsky.social (@19birkbeck.bsky.social)

Delighted to be in this talking about ridiculousness in BBC’s Ghosts and excited to see the rest of this first volume of new directions in the ghost story! Congrats all 🥳👻🥳

Dr Jen Baker@jendeavour.bsky.social · 3mo ago

*Very* excited that vol.1 of New Directions in the Ghost Story, edited by myself, @henrybartholomew.bsky.social & @joanpassey.bsky.social is out! Well done to all the contributors, and thanks for bearing with us! :) Please recommend to your academic libraries! link.springer.com/book/10.1007...

1. My opening ramble, 'At the Borderlands: A Haunted Introduction' grapples with the history of ghost story taxonomies & the complexities of terminology, before briefly surveying & sketching out key works of influential scholarship. Hopefully a good primer chapter for teaching 👻📚 #NewDirections

Dr Jen Baker@jendeavour.bsky.social · 3mo ago

*Very* excited that vol.1 of New Directions in the Ghost Story, edited by myself, @henrybartholomew.bsky.social & @joanpassey.bsky.social is out! Well done to all the contributors, and thanks for bearing with us! :) Please recommend to your academic libraries! link.springer.com/book/10.1007...

So grateful to have an essay in New Directions in the Ghost Story: "Ghost Gear and Cetacean Bodies: Stories of Spectral and Material Entanglement in the Necrocene" 👻💙🐋💙👻 Thanks @joanpassey.bsky.social, @henrybartholomew.bsky.social, @jendeavour.bsky.social! link.springer.com/book/10.1007...

New Directions in the Ghost Story, Volume I

Discover New Directions in the Ghost Story, Volume 1, a landmark collection of essays exploring haunted narratives and Gothic fiction.

link.springer.com

It’s here!

Dr Jen Baker@jendeavour.bsky.social · 3mo ago

*Very* excited that vol.1 of New Directions in the Ghost Story, edited by myself, @henrybartholomew.bsky.social & @joanpassey.bsky.social is out! Well done to all the contributors, and thanks for bearing with us! :) Please recommend to your academic libraries! link.springer.com/book/10.1007...

Happy birthday to the one and only Algernon Blackwood #BOTD

Calling all Thomas Hardy scholars - I bought a book for an obscure Algernon Blackwood story only to discover that it appears to be inscribed by Hardy. Can anyone confirm? And who is Caroline (‘Sammy’)? 🧐

The latest issue of @edinburghup.bsky.social's Gothic Studies features articles by our own Dr Nick Freeman and doctoral researcher Milly Harrison, on 'Algernon Blackwood and the Gothic':

ICYMI - the latest issue of Gothic Studies journal is devoted to the author, mystic, and media star Algernon Blackwood. The Intro asks how we can understand Blackwood as an author both in and beyond the Gothic tradition and how his work reshapes the genre. doi.org/10.3366/goth...

Publication day! My special issue on Algernon Blackwood and the Gothic is officially out: www.euppublishing.com/toc/gothic/c... My heartfelt thanks to all the contributors. So much in here - will cover in future posts. The issue positions B as a major force in C20th British Gothic.

Edinburgh University Press Journals - Table of Contents - gothic: Vol 27, No 3

euppublishing.com

👀

Dr Jen Baker@jendeavour.bsky.social · 12mo ago

Join me online with the Viktor Wynd museum on 26th October, 8pm (GMT) for a talk on "Spectral Embodiments: Manifesting and Visualising the Ghost Child" 👻🖤 LOADS of other amazing talks available throughout the year too; check out The Last Tuesday Society! www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/manifestin...

The cover of my upcoming special issue of @gothicstudies.bsky.social - 'Algernon Blackwood and the Gothic' - is here! Eight essays on Blackwood's fiction, delving into questions of genre, war, empathy, occultism, and much more. Full issue out soon! @edinburghup.bsky.social @igagoths.bsky.social

Something cosmic this way comes... the special issue of Gothic Studies I have been working on - Algernon Blackwood and the Gothic - is now in production ready for its November publication. Thrilled with the depth and breadth of insight and expertise from the contributors. More updates soon!

The wondrous Algernon Blackwood was born on this day in 1869! Excited to say that I am currently editing a special issue of Gothic Studies on ‘Blackwood and the Gothic’ due Nov. Features a truly fantastic line-up of contributors. I can’t wait for people to read it.

The most uncanny thing I've learnt from @henrybartholomew.bsky.social's excellent Handheld Press edition of Algernon Blackwood's writings is that—before turning to weird fiction—he tried to open something called 'the Hub'. Presumably bean bags, open plan desks, big lamps, Starbucks, no microwave.

Some fantastic prices here. You can pick up a copy of my books ‘The Unknown’ and ‘The Living Stone’ for £5 each! Last chance to support a small publisher before they close 👻

Kate Macdonald 📚 🧶@kateem.bsky.social · 2y ago

The Handheld Press Grand Closing Sale has been going so well that we're continually running out of popular titles. But we've found some more! Check back at www.handheldpress.co.uk to see what's available again. Only single copies, but you might catch the one you really wanted ... 📚💙🧙‍♀️

Algernon Blackwood’s “The Woman’s Ghost Story” republished in the Picture Post on Christmas Eve 1949 as “The Story the Woman Told”. Wonderful illustration by a 27-year old Susan Einzig (who would go on to illustrate Tom’s Midnight Garden)

👀

Gothic Studies@gothicstudies.bsky.social · 2y ago

Excited to share a glimpse of our next issue - a special issue on Gothic and Ageing

A small book filled with extraordinary ideas. I think aesthetic empathy is due a comeback. #VernonLee

🤩

Sally Blackburn Daniels@drsallybd.bsky.social · 2y ago

I made a starter pack for people interested in scholarship on Vernon Lee go.bsky.app/DJGbDZf I included lots of wonderful academics who have shaped my thoughts and directed my own work. Please let me know if I’ve missed anyone (and sorry if I have!).

My first post over here! In case you don’t know, my biography of M. R. James, ‘For the Dead Remember’, will be coming your way next year from Oxford University Press.