The 17th meeting of the biennial International Gothic Association Conference gets underway in Halifax on Tuesday, July 30 at Mount Saint Vincent University. The Gothic is a mode that reflects on cultural anxieties and explores gaps and contradictions that appear and haunt specific historical moments.
The International Gothic Association conference is held every two years and unites scholars, students, and writers from around the world in an exchange and expansion of knowledge and research on a variety of topics related to Gothic culture: fiction, drama, poetry, film, dance, architecture, popular culture and technology. This year’s conference will gather more than 150 delegates who will attend a diverse range of panel presentations covering more than 50 topics. There’s a series of workshops being held just for graduate and post-graduate students as well. And the conference will wrap-up with a Gothic disco, Goth attire encouraged.
This year’s keynote speakers include two influential scholars with international recognition:
- Dr. Jason Haslam is McCulloch Professor of English at Dalhousie University. He’ll present on Wednesday, July 31 on the topic: “The pit and petroleum: Gothic renditions of energy transitions.”
- Dr. Ardel Haefele-Thomas will present on Thursday, August 1. Dr. Haefele-Thomas is the Chair of LGBTQ+ Studies at City College of San Francisco. They’ll present on “Four Decades and Counting, Or, Living as Spectres: Gothic Modes in AIDS Art and Media.”
This year’s conference organizer is Dr. Karen Macfarlane, a professor of English at MSVU, and a highly regarded scholar in her own right. Dr. Macfarlane’s research interests include “The Gothic, particularly monsters and the monstrous body in contemporary culture and late nineteenth century fiction; Theory, especially feminist and queer theories; Imperialism in fin-de-siècle popular fiction; and postmodernism.” She has published and presented extensively on these and a number of related topics, including at the 2022 IGA Conference in Dublin, Ireland and a keynote presentation at the 2019 IGA in Chicago.
Karen will present at this year’s conference also, as will her fellow MSVU English professors Dr. Diane Piccitto and Dr. Krista Collier-Jarvis, and MSVU professor emeritus Dr. Peter Schwenger.
Find the conference on social media:
- Instagram – igahalifax2024
- X – IGAHalifax2024