Current IGA Conference
IGA 2009 Conference
Lancaster University, United Kingdom
Ninth Biennial Conference of the International Gothic Association: Monstrous Media/Spectral Subjects, Lancaster University, 21-24 July 2009.
Conference report
Our aim for the Lancaster conference was to reflect Lancaster’s own Gothic expertise and widen the remit of the Association by appealing to a multi-disciplinary audience. Possibly as a result of this strategy (or possibly simply because Gothic is in the air right now…) we believe that this was the largest IGA conference yet, with approximately 230 participants from at least 25 countries.
Owing to the size of the conference we made the decision to stage all events on campus. All academic events took place in the modern George Fox Complex, and catering and evening entertainment (with a bar open until midnight) in the nearby Barker’s House Farm, an eighteenth century cottage converted into an open-plan dining area.
The single exception was Mervyn Heard’s Magic Lantern show, which owing to specific technical requirements was staged in the adjacent Lancaster House Hotel. Delegates stayed in ensuite student rooms on campus or in the 4-star Lancaster House Hotel according to preference and budget. A beneficial side-effect of holding everything on campus was a real collegiate feel to the conference, with many chances for delegates to interact and socialising going on into the small hours.
Papers presented drew from the fields of literature, creative writing, film, TV, theatre, dance, digital media, popular culture, art, music, fashion, Classics and even medicine. There was a more pronounced contemporary focus than at previous IGA conferences, but the historical range comprised early eighteenth century to the present day (with a nod to ancient Greece and Rome on one panel) and a particularly strong showing from the later nineteenth century. This breadth was reflected in the keynote speakers, each of whom had been chosen to represent a different field. On Tuesday Marina Warner opened the conference with a fascinating and gorgeously illustrated presentation on Orientalism and magic in Beckford’s Vathek. On Wednesday, Elisabeth Bronfen spoke inspirationally on the current media presentation of war and its refraction in zombie films. On Thursday, Christoph Grunenberg (Director of Tate Liverpool) gave a highly entertaining (and again, fabulously illustrated) talk about Gothic in contemporary art. Finally, the conference closed with Tanya Krzywinska’s dynamic and provocative discussion of horror videogames – including live demonstrations of the games – which one distinguished delegate referred to as the best defence of videogames as an art form he had ever seen. Numerous delegates commented favourably on the quality of the keynotes, as well as the overall high standard of the papers.
There were also a number of special events staged throughout the week. Local site-specific artist Steve Messam created an installation especially for the conference, entitled ‘Cloud Cube’ – a cube-shaped structure filled with dry ice and red light that was inspired by the dual sensations of losing one’s bearings as the fog descends on the Cumbrian mountains, and attending Goth nightclubs. The red light also evoked alien life-forms and the interior of the human body – an uncanny experience on multiple levels.
On Tuesday evening, Mervyn Heard recreated a Victorian magic lantern show using authentic slides and equipment. Heard is a great raconteur as well as an expert on phantasmagoria, and enthralled a highly appreciative audience.
On Wednesday, Gothic cupcakes in black and absinthe-green (decorated with little monsters, edible green glitter, and sparkly bats and ghosts) were served at tea-time, and media theoretician Sarah Kember ‘performed’ extracts from her fiction – presented as ‘authentic’ scientific case studies. After dinner on Wednesday evening, ‘Bizarre Magicians’ Stuart Nolan and Nik Taylor interacted with delegates in the bar area – it’s hard to describe exactly what Bizarre Magic is, but it involves lots of story-telling, lots of strange and curious props, and is a little bit marvellous and a little bit sinister.
On Thursday, cream teas were served in the Ruskin Library, which was opened late for delegates’ private viewing, and novelists Jo Baker and Paul Magrs and dramatist and screenwriter Daragh Carville read extracts from their work. Finally, Thursday night ended with a DJ set from Paul Hodkinson, soon affectionately renamed the ‘Goth Disco’ – this was a raging success, with Paul heroically DJ-ing for four and a half hours (with strategic toilet break during the extended version of ‘This Corrosion’!) and dancing going on until 1.30 in the morning. (Paul’s set list is available on his website at http://www.paulhodkinson.co.uk/dj.php if you want to see what we were dancing to.)
We received a lot of local press interest, and were featured in three local newspapers, with photos of Nik Taylor and Marie Mulvey-Roberts (in full Victorian costume) devouring the Gothic cupcakes, and Kathryn Hardy Bernal as an Elegant Gothic Lolita. We were also featured on local radio and numerous online news sources.
We have had discussions with several publishers regarding a publication linked to the conference, and intend to send proposals to MUP in the first instance, given both that Gothic Studies is based there and Matthew Frost’s long-standing support for the IGA and Gothic studies in general. We hope that we may be among the early inclusions in the new ‘International Gothic’ series provisionally set up by Elisabeth Bronfen, Steven Bruhm, Jerry Hogle, Avril Horner and Bill Hughes in discussion with Matthew Frost at the conference. We have asked delegates to submit their unrevised conference papers by the end of September and aim to draw up a draft proposal or proposals by January, which we intend to supplement with commissioned essays as and where necessary. Given the size of the conference we are open to the idea of several themed volumes, should the papers submitted fall into suitable patterns.
In all, the conference surpassed our expectations and we are proud to have hosted such a rewarding and exciting event at Lancaster. We’d like to thank Avril and Sue for their support during the planning stages, and most importantly, everyone who attended and thereby contributed to its success.
Catherine Spooner and Fred Botting
1 September 2009
