Dr Sam Hirst Profile picture
Gothic lit. Research Fellow on Byron. Runs 'Romancing the Gothic'. 'Theology in the Early British and Irish Gothic, 1764-1834' out now with Anthem Press!
Leslie Jaszczak (Eserafina@nerdculture.de) Profile picture Anson Kennedy Profile picture 2 subscribed
Mar 17 28 tweets 5 min read
I've seen the 'no Protestant horror' do the rounds and I just assumed everyone knew that there is, in fact, lots of Protestant horror and oodles of Protestant Gothic.

I can give some examples if people are interested? I'll just pluck out a few examples. Not a comprehensive thead

1) The VVitch

I'll start with this one because so many people have mentioned it. It's obviously a Puritan rooted horror, although Puritanism is not a source of knowledge and expertise here to defeat the devil... 1/
Nov 19, 2022 14 tweets 3 min read
For anyone wondering about other methods of staying in touch with friends, lovers, colleagues and random acquaintances, the early Gothic has a range of excellent suggestions.

A thread of the best advice the Gothic has to give. 1/ 1) Hand-chisel your sentiments and thoughts in poem form in a local monument, tower or other stone structure. When your friend finds it accidentally months' later, it will resolve any and all questions that have arisen in the meantime.
Oct 11, 2022 29 tweets 23 min read
100 Gothic Books - How many have you read?
🧵 Disclaimer: This isn't a canon. This isn't a 'should have read' list or a 'must read' list. It's literally a list of 100 Gothic or Gothic adjacent works that you may or may not have read! It's strongly influenced by my areas of expertise (18th and 19th century Gothic)
Aug 11, 2022 4 tweets 1 min read
What a bunch of tedious edgelords replying to yesterday's thread. Yeah, big man, you make those students read detailed depictions of rape and violence in every book. That'll teach 'em. Something. What it'll teach them is unclear. But I'm sure it's something. I try not to be unkind or cutting on here. Yesterday really beat me down, though, seeing how much unkindness people are capable of. How dismissive people can be of these 'imaginary' students that I know as real people: lovely, valuable people worthy of respect and care.
Aug 10, 2022 13 tweets 3 min read
Let me be as direct about this as I can.

Content notes/warnings allow students to be prepared for the texts they read.

This isn't a case of protecting 'lil baby students from bad words'. It's a case, for example, of preparing a rape victim for graphic depictions of rape. 1/ Content warnings aren't there for 'delicate snowflakes' to be 'protected from acknowledging the realities of anything they don't like'.

They are there to protect and prepare people who have all too real experience or relation to these topics. 2/
Aug 9, 2022 4 tweets 1 min read
The amount of times in the early Gothic that people just get tired/really sad and lie on the floor... right in the middle of life or death situations.

It's probably one of my favourite ridiculous tropes. This brought to you by Hippolytus in 'A Sicilian Romance' who 'quite exhausted, sunk on the ground, and endeavoured to resign himself to his fate' while being pursued by bandits.
Aug 8, 2022 59 tweets 11 min read
I'm seeing that call for a gothic romance anthology get a lot of shit. There might be some relevant critiques but there sure are a lot of people making it very clear they don't know that Gothic romance is its own (massive) subgenre with its own rules. How about an introduction? Just to be clear, I don't have any skin in the game in regards to the anthology. But I do care about Gothic romance. Did you know that it was one of the best-selling yet least critically recognised forms of the Gothic in the 20th century. I wonder why? (I know why) 2/
Apr 9, 2022 80 tweets 14 min read
Guys... has anyone read 'The Chemist' by Stephenie Meyer because this is one wild ride and I feel like I have stepped into a parallel universe. Ok, let me take you on a journey with me. I'm about 160 pages in so I'll catch you up.

First, the premise of this book is that a professional (chemical) torturer is on the run after getting nixed by her department.

Yes, that's right. Our heroine is a professional torturer. 1/
Apr 7, 2022 10 tweets 4 min read
Have you seen Romancing the Gothic's fantastic list of April talks? This month is focused on the eighteenth century and we have werewolves, erotica and William Godwin to offer! Check out the talks below.

Talks are

Free
Online
and
Open to All This week, on Sunday 10th April, we're joined at 10am and 7pm BST by Simon Clewes to talk William Godwin.

The talk is 'Reimagining the Paranoid Gothic: Productive Transgressions, Non-Reproductive
Desire, and Gender Non-Conformity in the Writing of William Godwin!'⬇️
Jul 16, 2021 30 tweets 4 min read
Ok, so, would anyone be interested in a horror story about... potatoes? Potato horror... here we come! 🥔🥔🥔🥔🥔🥔🥔🥔🥔🥔🥔🥔🥔🥔🥔🥔
Jun 12, 2021 30 tweets 6 min read
I'll let other people speak to the rest of this thread but let me be clear: yes, bullying horror writers is bad. No, TW aren't censorship, they're to allow informed choice especially for those whose trauma can be triggered.

This is a cool claim if true. But is it? Others rocked out to quiet horror. Vampires were all the rag Well, there are two distinct claims here. 1) 'No matter who you were, horror had something for you.' Suggesting an inclusive history for horror. Let's deal with that first, shall we?
Jun 11, 2021 22 tweets 4 min read
I am doing some very dull non-fiction editing right now (changing referencing styles 😭) so if any would like to help distract me... They'll be from different WIPs and works. Just for fun :) 1 like = 1 character from my WIP From 'Revenge' and 'One Place' and current WIP

Earal

🗡️ Goddess but doesn't like the title
🗡️ Enjoys baking
🗡️ Everyone thinks she's the nice one
🗡️ Will literally rip out your spine with her bare hands if you kill her partner
🗡️ Amoral sapphic agent of vengeance
Jun 10, 2021 12 tweets 2 min read
Romancing the Gothic has its first conference in November on Georgette Heyer and it's important that we do confront these aspects of the writer. These conversations are necessary. And we have papers, roundtables and discussions to hopefully do that. I think, for me, we have to start treating Heyer as we would any writer from history. That goes both ways. It means not dismissing romance writers and their work. It also means investigating them and their work with the rigour we demand of interactions with other writers.
Mar 29, 2021 9 tweets 5 min read
Another thing to briefly brighten your morning. A little ode to how much I loved the @NationalTheatre version of Twelfth Night with Tamsin Grief (Marvolia), Oliver Chris (Orsino), Tamara Lawrence (Viola), Daniel Rigby (Andrew Aguecheek) and Adam Best (Antonio) Viola and Olivia talkingViola and her servants all dressed in black with sunglassesSir Andrew Aguecheek and Toby Belch dressed in pink and purpViola as Cesario and Orsino at a birthday party The set work by Soutra Gilmour was inspired with a revolving staircase opening out into different scenarios. It led to a final scene where the stage revolves to show the different character endings. Gorgeous work. The Elephant Bar setIn Olivia's garden - a duel commencesA shot from further back where you can see the different sceA pool open up in the floor of the stage
Mar 28, 2021 25 tweets 5 min read
Johannes often says the things the voice in the back of my head is crying.

When people talk about books being 'cancelled', they are often eliding the fact that by their standards (apparently inclusion on university courses or continuous publication) most books are 'cancelled' 1/ Most books aren't taught. Most books aren't in continuous publication. Most books aren't on high school curricula. That's...millions of books.

So to suggest that not being published/on curricula/taught at university means a book is 'cancelled' is nonsensical 2/
Mar 28, 2021 10 tweets 3 min read
I always thought it would be romantic. For hands to touch on the worn spine of a favourite book. Eyes would meet. Shy smiles. A hesitant laugh. A shared love of a favourite text... and then a slow burn stroll off into the sunset. 1/ Of course, in reality there was only one copy. A first edition. Jacket intact. When our hands touched there was no spark. Fingers became hooked claws, staking a claim. When our eyes met, hearts didn't soften. There was a feral gleam in her eyes and I knew that I was glaring. 2/
Mar 27, 2021 30 tweets 11 min read
In Satan's telling, God becomes the petty tyrant resisting all challenges to his absolute power. Satan resists that power and will not be cowed by defeat or vengeance but stands with his fellows.

'Courage never to submit or yield:
And what else is not to be overcome?' And to the fierce contentio...A mind not to be chang'd by... Those verses make me tremble. They are so powerful and so beautiful. And it's no wonder that it is this image of Satan which was taken up in the 18th century and made Blake famously suggest that Milton was 'of the devil's party without knowing it' John Martin's Paradise Lost...
Mar 27, 2021 7 tweets 3 min read
There's a good couple of centuries at least of using Demonic imagery as a form of resistance, subversion and disruption and people are still coming for Lil Nas X with the most basic of takes. Using Satanic imagery isn't 'Satan worship' and it isn't evil. Some history. 1/ Lil Nas X in Montero. Havin... First up, lovely religious followers, if the imagery and content sits uncomfortably with your faith, that's ok. Just step away from it. I'll be giving a little history of demonic imagery and associated meanings but it might have a set theological meaning to you. 2/
Mar 15, 2021 18 tweets 3 min read
If I ever get to design a course at a university, I swear this to you: I will write a course with not one single sodding text that includes sexual abuse, assault, rape or coercion.

NOT. ONE. It'll be a little oasis module. Come in, come in and be safe, my lovelies. Will we still talk about big themes? Will we still have complex conversations? Sure. Will I ask you to read or watch sexual assault? No. No, I will not.
Nov 23, 2020 48 tweets 21 min read
My class on Paradise Lost and Frankenstein has got me thinking about the big questions in life, namely: Who is the sexiest Satan? Thread.

Let us being in 1847 with Alexander Cabanel's 'Fallen Angel'. A strong opening contender... I think of this one as 'pouty Satan'. A classic in the genre are the sexy Satan statues by the Geef brothers. One was too sexy and therefore discounted... so the next brother just made a sexier one. 2/
Nov 9, 2020 27 tweets 7 min read
Took me about 5 minutes to stop rolling my eyes but I'm back now.

This does rather seem to lean into elitist attitudes which are all too common with (self-defined) 'literary' fiction patting itself on the back for how clever it is.

Let's get into it. This study suggests that literary fiction readers is associated with more analytical competency and specifically in the field of assessing and understanding those around you.

Their findings seem compelling.

But there's a problem (or 10) 2/