The recent (re)turn to the study of emotion in literary studies invites a reconsideration of the Gothic as a mode that relies on the emotional response of those who are confronted with the uncanny and who, as a result, experience fear.

The ways in which writers represent emotional response and immediacy is central to understanding the Gothic as a force that transcends and transmutes culturally enforced structures of (self-) control and the fashioning of gender roles and stereotypes.

From extensive phantasmagoric descriptions of imagined encounters with the fear-inspiring "other" to the actual (infectious) touch and the consequent sensations experienced through this Gothic encounter, the human subject becomes a resonance body as well as a container of emotion
the latter of which through fear and the uncanny overflows spontaneously and cathartically releases emotional response.

This international conference on "Gothic Sensations - Sensational Gothic" aims to explore the complex fields of emotion in Gothic and sensation fiction from 1765 to 1900. The organizer invites proposals (max. 300 words) for 20-minute papers on any aspect of the conference theme. It is
planned to publish revised and expanded versions of selected papers.

DEADLINE: 1 June 2009.

Conference team: Janice Allan, Lucie Armitt, Scott Brewster, Sandro Jung, Susan Oliver and Sharon Ruston

• Add to calendar
• Invite Friends
• Print