Through literature and writing, this vibrant group of academics and students looks beneath the surface in search of deeper truths - about our world, about our times, about ourselves.
Gothic literature has held us in an eerie thrall ever since Horace Walpole published The Castle of Otranto in 1764. The genre's hallmark is a feeling of disquiet and destabilisation, frequently using the supernatural or the superhuman to take us out of our psychological comfort zone. Often there is a monster; sometimes the hint of a beast is all it takes.
One of Professor Justin Edwards' strands of research examines how Gothic literature has reflected political and social fears, acting as the repository for unease about science, sexuality, technology, terrorism, communism, immigration and countless other Others that have gripped an anxious society for a spell.
With everything from gory horror shockfests to mainstream sagas such as Twilight and True Blood enjoying huge success in print and on screen, there seems no danger of the world falling out of love with the Gothic. Indeed, Professor Edwards contends that popular culture itself has become Gothic-tinged, with music, fashion, video games and the very identity of some youth subcultures all succumbing to a Gothic seduction.
Women of the Middle Ages found it difficult to make their voices heard in society, especially through writing and literature. Difficult, but not always impossible…
In her research into female medieval writers, Professor Diane Watt (Head of the School of English and Languages) looks at texts that may have been written by women, commissioned by women or based on women's writing. For example, Bede's 8th-century Ecclesiastical History of the English People may have been partially sourced from texts created by nuns, and the Life of St Gregory the Great produced in Whitby at around the same time uses an unusual form of Latin that may indicate a female author.
Identifying previously unsuspected female influence during the very period in which literature was starting to emerge in England would, belatedly, bring greater appreciation for the role played by women's religious, historical and political writing in forming English society's ideas and identity from the Anglo-Saxon period onwards.
Arts and science are traditionally regarded as separate lines of intellectual pursuit, with exponents prone to disagreement over which is more important. This split was most famously discussed - and lamented - by British scientist and novelist C.P. Snow in his 1959 lecture on the 'two cultures', and is the focus of research for Dr Gregory Tate of the School of English and Languages.
In his work, Dr Tate looks at how literature and literary figures engage with science, especially in the 19th century. This seminal era for English literature was also the time when people began to place reason and emotion at opposite ends of the spectrum in understanding the world and human nature. Scientific advances led many to believe that a perfect society was possible, counterbalanced by the rise of romanticism and its hostility to technology and urbanisation. Some literary figures of the time were enthusiastic defenders of science, while others thought it an inferior form of learning.
In tracing the development of this relationship through the 19th century, Dr Tate is addressing issues that remain relevant today. The two cultures still exist, of course. "But," he asks, "as long as they do not fall into a hierarchy, with one privileged and the other neglected, is this necessarily a bad thing?"
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