On November 2, 3, 4, 2023, the Université de Montréal held an international conference on digital platforms.

Rare is the Christmas break where I don’t have a pile of research to catch up on, so it was a pleasure to luxuriate in books for a change. Two new arrivals were devoured instantly, and both reflected very different approaches to writing about screen media. One chiefly about film, the other squarely about television.

When I went with a friend to Plockton in the Scottish Highlands, admittedly over a decade ago, despite the fact that it was one of the main filming locations, memorabilia for Hammer Horror’s The Wicker Man (1973, dir. Hardy) were really nowhere to be seen. Instead, the tourist information centre had a number of Hamish MacBeth (BBC Scotland 1995-1997)[1] items on display.

How might we illustrate, explore, and begin to define the state of the nation film and television text? This free online conference invites consideration of these questions. The contours of the genre and tropes are fluid, and often the term is retrospectively ascribed.

For our readers outside the UK, I may have to let you know that something quite extraordinary has happened in the UK this week. A TV drama – a TV DRAMA – made, no less, by an, albeit commercial, but nevertheless PUBLIC SERVICE broadcaster, has thoroughly and utterly rattled the political establishment INTO ACTION. I am sorry for all the caps. But I feel it needs to be emphasised.

‘Nostalgia is always suspect’ (Atia and Davies 2010: 181). The trope of a hero who looks for a ‘normal’ life and then finds it unrewarding is common enough in the superhero and similar genres.

In 1983, the Survey of Modern Fantasy Literature was already noting Gothic’s altered eroticism from Byronic villainous figures in the works of Anne Rice; albeit still evil and dangerous and consumed by tormented doubt.  Since then, the indefiniteness of the Gothic genre in its latest iteration, AMC’s Interview with the Vampire, (2022) provides pictorial scope for the bold attractions of the male body.

“Isn’t that the book that you were writing 30 years ago?” asked my dear friend Hilary. We were discussing a new volume about Blake’s 7 (1978-1981), the BBC science-fiction adventure series that ran between the dates that I just put in that bracket after its name and which was now being chronicled in a rather superb and brilliant and lavish new book – Blake’s 7 – Production Diary: Series A

Irish TV needs a strong female detective or crime sleuth in the vein of Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple or Anne Cleeves’ wonderful character Vera on ITV1, starring Brenda Blethyn as Detective Inspector Vera Stanhope of the Northumbria Police. It gets even better with Sally Wainwright’s creation, Happy Valley, set and filmed in the Calder Valley, West Yorkshire.

Conference to be held at the University of St Andrews 19th-21st June, 2024  Keynote Speakers: Seán Allan (University of St. Andrews), Erica Carter (King’s College London), Johannes von Moltke (University of Michigan)  Organisers: Paul Flaig and Dora Osborne

Nightmare ‘24 @ The Northern School of Art: 25th April 2024 Submission Deadline: Friday 16th February 2024 CFP: “Dreams or nightmares? Madness or Sanity? I don’t know which is which” – The Representation of Mental Health in the Horror Genre The organisers invite proposals for 15-minute papers to be presented at the first Nightmare conference.