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In: personal blog

Desert Island Discs. A long-running BBC Four radio programme in which guests, or “castaways”, select eight recordings (usually music), one book, and one luxury item to take with them to a desert island. I confess, I don’t listen to it often, but I am always intrigued to see what certain people I admire or am interested in select as their options. Recently, my friend Natasha Gibson, who works in the National Museum of Scotland up in Edinburgh, had to select her Desert Island Discs for a display. Inspired by her choices, I decided to select my own. Or at least, those I would pick atRead More →

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In: bisexuality, gothic, television

One of the texts I am researching for my PhD thesis is Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and in particular both the depiction of Willow Rosenberg’s sexuality and her complex morality. What I present here is just some unedited notes on some of my thought processes, taken from my chapter notes. These are definitely unrefined and unpolished, but certainly a start in getting my head around Buffy‘s somewhat problematic relationship with queer identities.Read More →

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In: study tips

In May, I will be delivering a short talk to the cohort of Masters students in Arts and Humanities at Manchester Metropolitan University about the different skills I learnt when completing my MA dissertation and provide them with some advice going forward. I only have 15 minutes to deliver this, so I thought I would cover it in more depth here:Read More →

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In: bisexuality, queer studies

In a recent meeting with my supervisory team, one thing that came up is that I need to define bisexuality in my research. This might seem relatively straightforward, but it has proven to be a complex issue to unpick. This is especially down to bisexuality being somewhat neglected in academic study, meaning there is little consensus, but also because I am using metaphorical depictions of bisexuality in the Gothic alongside explicit ones. My first challenge, therefore, was to develop my own taxonomy of bisexuality.Read More →

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In: personal blog

One thing I have learnt as I approach the end of the first year of my PhD (part-time), is that it is not only important to take breaks, but essential. I am already a huge advocate for self-care; it is something I preach to my friends, family, and students, even if it is something I’m not always good at practicing myself. I have found that, since starting a supposedly lonely and isolating course of study, I’ve actually been a lot more social, and having a lot more fun.Read More →

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In: gothic

NOTE: This blog was originally written for the entertainment website I’m With Geek, which no longer exists although it is archived online. It was originally written and published in March 2013. My writing has improved drastically since then, but I still wanted to include it here. My passion for film came about entirely by accident. I’d originally wanted to study Photography at A-Level, but the college didn’t offer it at the time. (I now work at the same college, and annoyingly, they now do photography.) Film Studies was a last minute choice, but one that ended up shaping my entire future. Because of that course, IRead More →

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In: gothic, personal blog

In July of 2018, the m/m romance author Leta Blake wrote a Facebook post discussing her reaction to the criticisms received on her Heat of Love novel series. The criticism itself came from a gay cis male reader who claimed that the novels were highly offensive as they depicted mpreg (male pregnancy). I intended to write a blog about the subject for a while and have unfortunately only just got around to it. This blog is not actually about Blake’s books, the reaction from her reader, and the ensuing debate. That has long passed, and also I don’t feel qualified to discuss it further. ThisRead More →

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In: conferences, gothic

I am pleased to announce that I, along with a team of PhD candidates in the Manchester Centre for Gothic Studies at Manchester Metropolitan University, am organising a conference this summer entitled ‘Absent Presences: shifting the core and peripheries of the Gothic mode’. The purpose of this conference is to shed light on the neglected aspects of Gothic studies, from representation of marginalised groups both in text and in authorship, to under-explored media types such as new media and online video. We aim to expand the ‘Gothic canon’ beyond the traditional texts and perspectives, and aim to establish a new, wider definition of what canRead More →

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In: gothic, television

In the Flesh (Dominic Mitchell, 2013-2015) takes place in the isolated, rural community of Roarton, Lancashire. As the setting of the inception of a global zombie apocalypse, Roarton becomes a hotbed of conflict between the human survivors and the now-medicated zombies (or Partially Deceased Syndrome sufferers to give them their politically correct title) who are being integrated back into society. In the centre of this conflict is Kieren Walker, a queer PDS-sufferer who has returned five years after his suicide and is frequently torn between disguising himself as human, or going ‘au naturale’ like his best friend Amy Dyer and taking pride in his difference.Read More →