OUT NOW: Werewolves, Wolves and the Gothic, ed. Robert McKay and John Miller (University of Wales Press, 2017)

A new academic edited collection on werewolves from University of Wales Press, featuring a chapter by me on bad dads, painful transformations and the embarrassment of morning-after nudity...

Wolves lope across Gothic imagination. Signs of a pure animality opposed to humanity, in the figure of the werewolf they become liminal creatures that move between the human and the animal. Werewolves function as a site for exploring complex anxieties of difference – of gender, class, race, space, nation or sexuality – but the imaginative and ideological uses of wolves also reflect back on the lives of material animals, long persecuted in their declining habitats across the world. Werewolves therefore raise unsettling questions about the intersection of the real and the imaginary, the instability of human identities and the worldliness and political weight of the Gothic.

This is the first volume concerned with the appearance of werewolves and wolves in literary and cultural texts from the mid-nineteenth century to the present. Drawing on representations of werewolves and wolves in literature, film, television and visual culture, the essays investigate the key texts of the lycanthropic canon alongside lesser-known works from the 1890s to the present. The result is an innovative study that is both theoretically aware and historically nuanced, featuring an international list of established and emerging scholars based in Britain, Europe, North America and Australia.

Contents

- Introduction, Robert McKay and John Miller
- Like Father Like Son: Wolf-Men, Paternity and the Male Gothic, Hannah Priest
- Wicked Wolf-Women and Shaggy Suffragettes: Lycanthropic Femme Fatales in the Victorian and Edwardian Eras, Jazmina Cininas
- Postcolonial Vanishings: Wolves, American Indians, and Contemporary Werewolves, Michelle Nicole Boyer
- The Good, the Bad, and the Ubernatural: The Other(ed) Werewolf in Twilight, Roman Bartosch and Celestine Caruso
- ‘Becoming woman’/Becoming Wolf: Girl Power and the Monstrous Feminine in the Ginger Snaps Trilogy, Batia Boe Stolar
- ‘Something that is either werewolf or vampire’: Interrogating the Lupine Nature of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Kaja Franck
- Saki, Nietzsche and the Superwolf, John Miller
- A Vegetarian Diet for the Were-wolf Hunger of Capital: Leftist and Pro-animal Thought in Guy Endore’s The Werewolf of Paris, Robert McKay
- Everybody Eats Somebody: Angela Carter’s Wolfish Ecology, Margot Young
- ‘But by Blood No Wolf Am I’: Language and Agency, Instinct and Essence – Transcending Antinomies in Maggie Steifvater’s Shiver Trilogy, Bill Hughes
- Transforming the Big Bad Wolf: Redefining the Werewolf through Grimm and Fables, Matthew Lerberg

For more information, please visit the publisher's website.

Gothic to Goth: a weekend course in London

Come and take a trip to the dark side…

This October, I’ll be running Gothic to Goth, a weekend course at the V&A in London. With lectures over two days, the course will cover everything from Bram Stoker to Robert Smith… from Sweeney Todd to Edward Cullen… from Strawberry Hill to Silent Hill.

Gothic to Goth will be on Saturday 21st and Sunday 22nd October, 11-4pm. I’ll be giving lectures on penny dreadfuls, Gothic romance and horror literature/film, and there’ll be some other wonderful lecturers giving talks on Gothic architecture, Dracula, Goth music and Alexander McQueen.

You can register for the course via the V&A website (info about course fees can also be found here), but here’s a little taste of what the programme will look like…

Saturday 21st October

Session 1. The Gothic Past
Lecturer: Dr Hannah Priest
Session 2. Horace Walpole and Strawberry Hill
Lecturer: tbc
Session 3. Penny Dreadfuls and Victorian Pulp Fiction
Lecturer: Dr Hannah Priest
Session 4. Enter Dracula
Lecturer: Dr Sorcha Ní Fhlainn, MMU

Sunday 22nd October

Session 1. Goodbye Romance, Hello Horror
Lecturer: Dr Hannah Priest
Session 2. Dark, Punk and Goth
Lecturer: Professor Isabella van Elferen, Kingston University
Session 3. Gothic Style and Alexander McQueen
Lecturer: Claire Wilcox, V&A
Session 4. The Gothic Future
Lecturer: Dr Hannah Priest

Weekend courses at the V&A give you the opportunity to spend a couple of days immersing yourself in a topic, learning from experts, and enjoying the splendour of the V&A building.

To find out more about Gothic to Goth, or to register for the course, please click here for details.

A little video about my local park...

In July, it was #LoveParks week, an initiative by Keep Britain Tidy intended to show 'how much our country loves parks'. As you may or may not know, I'm on the committee of Friends of Crumpsall Park, and I took the lead this year on our #LoveParks activity.

Crumpsall Park is a small urban park in North Manchester, officially opened in 1899. Crumpsall isn't the richest area in the city (though it's not the poorest), and it doesn't always get the best press. In fact, it doesn't always get any press at all, as our local paper is notorious for its lack of reporting on the north side of the city. The best we can usually expect is coverage of crime, complaints about the hospital, and the occasional story about someone being fined for fly-tipping.

Things were very different at the end of the nineteenth century. Crumpsall had only just been incorporated into the City of Manchester, and it was still (in places) quite rural. Having escaped the worst excesses of the Industrial Revolution, Crumpsall was slowly being developed into a city suburb, as new houses were built to accommodate Manchester's workforce - leading to the construction of new schools, shops and parks for the benefit of residents.

At the official opening ceremony of Crumpsall Park in 1899, the Lord Mayor addressed the crowd, acknowledging that, given that Crumpsall was 'more or less in the country', the construction of a new park might seem unnecessary. He added: 'some of [you] might think it was not wanted to-day, but a time would come when [your] successors would say that the Corporation had done well in securing it.'

Crumpsall can no longer (by any stretch of the imagination) be described as 'more or less in the country', and I thought it would be nice to see what the people of today's Crumpsall think of our little park.

So I asked, and this is what they said...

GUEST POST; or, Why You Can't Trust Anything on the Internet

From time to time, I like to post guest blogs written by people I know, sharing work that interests me (and that I think will interest you). While most of these are written by people I have invited, I also get requests from guest bloggers who want to contribute to the site.

I do get quite a few of these emails, and I don't like to dismiss them off-hand, so sometimes I like to look into the background of the person contacting me. So when I get an email like this...

"Hello,

My name is James and I'm a freelance blog writer from London. Most of my work so far has been focused around various cleaning, travel and marketing tips as that is something that I have had a lot of personal experience with.

I've taken a look at some of the guest posts on your site, and I must say that I really like how they're done. I'd appreciate it if I could have a chance to contribute to your website in the same way, the topics I have in mind are:
- Cleaning Tips: Cleaning Your Home For The Holidays
- 8 Helpful Cleaning Tips For Incredibly Lazy People
- 10 Cleaning Tips That Will Make Your Home Sparkle
- 5 Time-Saving House Cleaning Tips for your Staged Home
- 7 Expert Cleaning Tips You Need To Be Using
- Top 5 Speedy Deep Cleaning Tips

As mentioned, I possess a hefty amount of knowledge in this field so I really think that I could provide you with some quality material. I'm attaching an example of my work.

If you do not find these topics interesting for your community, please let me know, I am sure I can write a right content for your audience."

... I like to see what sort of work the writer has done before. I don't just post any old article on speedy deep cleaning tips on this site. I need to know that my contributors really do have the hefty amount of knowledge about cleaning tips for staged homes that they claim.

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to find much work by 'James Tolbert, freelance blog writer from London', so I had to try another tack. As a professional writer, James naturally included a headshot in his email signature:

I thought maybe if I did a reverse-image search, I might be able to find out a bit more about James's freelance work.

And wow.

Just... wow.

This guy is incredible. He's had a staggering career. Seriously. Judging by his picture, he's not that old. But he's worked all over the world, you guys. In so many different industries. And, oddly, under so many different names (I'm not making any judgement here - I also write under different names - but James has a lot of pen-names). Reading through my search results, I knew James was exactly the sort of fascinating character I would love to have write for the site.

So here's the response I sent him:

"Dear James/Rodney,

I'd love to have you write for my site - you sound just right. But I think you're selling yourself short by offering a rather pedestrian piece on household cleaning. A quick Google search shows me that you have much more to offer!

It'd be great to have a piece for my blog on your experiences as a computer programmer and author, and your work as a youth pastor. Or perhaps you could write about your work as an interior decorator in Mumbai? I'd love to know more about your role as an Operations Manager, and your experience of using a professional resume-writing service - how did this square with your own background as Marketing Manager for Resumes Planet?

Alternatively, it would be great to get a piece on your experiences of doing an MBA in France, or the time you took out dental insurance under the name 'Jorge V'.

I'd also be happy with a piece about wine or environmentalism - two subjects that I know are close to your heart. Or on the challenges of balancing running a digital marketing agency in Dallas, while also managing an Italian restaurant in Bangalore. That must be an incredible amount of work! You have so much energy!

I see you have a small cohort of colleagues that you enjoy working with on numerous projects. Could you write something about your work with Joseph, Ken Burns and John Rodney? I know you guys have worked together on both property development and entrepreneur support. How did you guys start working together?

Final suggestion: I'd love to know more about your work, under the name Roderigo Cervantes, as CEO of an avant-garde architectural design company.

I am fascinated by your company's approach to marketing, not least the decision to only use quotes from Moby Dick, War of the Worlds and Around the World in 80 Days as text on your website. (Could you also clarify - sorry for being confused - why, although you're listed as CEO on the home page, the 'Philosophy' page lists Vincent Vega as CEO, with Mia Wallace and Jules Winnfield as General Manager and Lead Architect?)

Anyway, lots of suggestions from me! Let me know your thoughts, and thanks again for getting in touch."

I'm going to wait until James/Rodney replies to ask him about all his other businesses. A cursory glance through Yelp reveals that he's sure got his fingers in a lot of pies (and I know that these must all be aliases of the same person, because Yelp has a policy of rejecting stock images for Business Account profiles).

Sadly, James/Rodney hasn't got back to me yet. Maybe I can commission a guest blog from Ken Burns, Joseph or John Rodney? I'm sure they'd have some crazy stories to tell.


If you would like to use James/Rodney's face for a fake testimonial, wine blog or Yelp business profile, you can download it here for free (please do buy the photographer a coffee).

To read more about my unending fascination with dodgy guest-blogging services, please enjoy these other articles:
Guest Bloggers Wanted (but only if you exist)
Another Guest Post from a Non-Existent Blogger