Research Activity

Gothic and Science Fiction is a thriving area of teaching and research at Lancaster.

Historically, our work ranges from Liz Oakley-Brown’s work on the Premodern to Catherine Spooner’s on the Post-Millennial. We are particularly strong on media and culture and on the conversations between popular genres. Recent major publications include Post-Millennial Gothic (Catherine Spooner), Apocalyptic Fiction (Andrew Tate) and Transplantation Gothic (Sara Wasson). Within Creative Writing, Gothic and Science Fiction are also flourishing with recent works including Jenn Ashworth’s novel Fell and Curious Tales project, Brian Baker’s short films, Taj Hayer’s play North Country and Conor O’Callaghan’s novel Nothing on Earth. From 2017-2019, Sara Wasson led the AHRC-funded Translating Chronic Pain: A Critical and Creative Research Network, which constructed links between Gothic, Science Fiction and the Medical Humanities.

There is a large and lively Gothic and Science Fiction PhD community at Lancaster with a strong record of NWCDTP funding. The Department hosts the annual international conference and peer-reviewed journal Fantastika, run by PhD students and post-docs. There are regular reading groups and annual study days in both Gothic and Science Fiction; conferences organised by PhD students include Gothic Spectacle and Spectatorship, Glitches and Ghosts and Gothflix.