Modern Language Association 2020: Talking Back to the Dead: Neo-Victorian Gothic
deadline for submissions: March 20, 2019
contact email: io3jc@virginia.eduSeeking paper abstracts for the special session “Talking Back to the Dead: Neo-Victorian Gothic” at the MLA Annual Convention in Seattle, WA, January 9-12, 2020.
The organizer invites submissions that explore the literary features, historical contexts, and theoretical approaches to neo-Victorian Gothic works, ghost stories, supernatural folklore, and more. The proposed session is interested in essays that analyze the neo-Victorian Gothic in literature and other media and a diversity of scholarly viewpoints is welcome. This session will participate in the emerging critical conversation on neo-Victorian Gothic works and recognize the importance of this tradition for contemporary audiences. Papers could explore the following topics in relation to these works:
• Gender roles (marriage, domesticity, the family, childhood, queerness)
• Spiritual movements (Spiritualism, psychical research, occultism, folklore)
• Colonial possessions (Scotland and Ireland, Asia, the Caribbean)
• Science (the mad scientist, fringe sciences, occult detection)
• Economics (money, finance, real estate, the workplace)
• The Other (slaves, the working classes, women, colonial subjects)
• Popular influence (adaptations, live events, ghost tours)
• Postmodernism (intertextuality, nostalgia, the death of the author)
• Individual authors’ handling of supernatural phenomena, monsters, and powers (A. S. Byatt, Sarah Waters, Gail Carriger)
Please send your CVs and 300-word abstracts to Indu Ohri at
io3jc@virginia.edu by March 20, 2019.
