The Past as Nightmare

The Past as Nightmare
An interdisciplinary conference from the Centre for Health Humanities
6-7 September 2022, University of Reading (UK)

Keynote speakers: Dr Ailise Bulfin & Professor Laurence Talairach

The gothic has a complex relationship with the past, and with history as a discipline. Much of the early body of gothic fiction is set in the past, often in the form of ‘found’ historical documents, whilst the past also functions as an inescapable nemesis, returning to haunt modernity. How is the past as a concept and as haunting interpreted in gothic horror literature? How is the discipline of history itself, and the historian or antiquarian as an individual, portrayed in the gothic mode?

Registration is open.

For further details on the event, please contact a.s.mangham@reading.ac.uk