A free festive celebration of Victorian popular fiction, ghosts, and all things wonderfully Gothic!
The Victorian Popular Fiction Association (VPFA) is delighted to announce a new joint Annual Christmas Lecture, organised in collaboration with the International Centre for Victorian Women Writers (ICVWW), based in Canterbury.
Taking place annually, with the VPFA and ICVWW hosting in alternate years, this new event aims to bring people together for a fun, welcoming and engaging celebration of Victorian literature. With an invited speaker, an accessible and thought-provoking lecture, and time for questions and answers afterwards, the Christmas Lecture offers the perfect opportunity to explore fascinating ideas, share perspectives and enjoy some festive literary spirit.
Whether you are an established scholar, and early-career researcher, a student, or simply interested in Victorian literature, everyone is welcome!
Our Inaugural Christmas Lecture
‘Men and Ghosts and Ghosts and Men’
Professor Ruth Heholt, Falmouth University
Wednesday 2nd December, 4-5pm
In the Victorian age the phenomena of ghosts, communicating with ghosts, and writing ghost stories, could and did carve out spaces for women that allowed them greater freedoms than usual in that often quite rigid culture. Women writing about female ghosts highlighted inequalities, injustices, and very often, the abuse and murder of women by men. This talk looks at what women-authored ghost tales tell us about men. Men being haunted by the ghosts of those they’ve murdered, but also at the male ghostly figure. What happens to a man when his body is transparent, ethereal, and insubstantial? Christmas is all about ghosts and our male ghost seers and male ghosts might get a present they may not have wanted!
Join us for an engaging celebration of Victorian literature, lively discussion and a little Christmas haunting.