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Dr Alison Younger has contributed a chapter to an Edinburgh University Press publication edited by Joanne Ella Parsons and Ruth Heholt. The volume, entitled The Victorian Male Body examines some of the main expressions and practices of Victorian masculinity and its embodied physicality. Alison's chapter - which explores dandyism and the gothic body - is called 'Monstrous Masculinities from the Macaroni to the Masher: Reading the Gothic 'Gentleman''.

Once again, several members of the School of Culture will be taking part in the Sunderland Libraries Literature Festival (download the full programme here ). These events feature our staff/students: Colin Younger (Senior Lecturer): Expressive Writing as Therapy, City Library @ Museum & Winter Gardens, 10th October 3-4.30pm This workshop will explore expressive writing approaches to support mental health well-being as part of Mental Health Day. Dr Alison Younger (Senior Lecturer): Folklore and Fable in the North East, Houghton Library, 16th October 2-3pm This session will explore the extraordinary folklore and fables of North East England. Short Story Competition Launch , Waterstones, The Bridges, 16th October 5pm In association with Waterstones, the University of Sunderland will launch a Short Story Competition. Dr Geoff Nash (Senior Lecturer): The Gothic Terrorist: from Robespierre to Jihadi John City, Library @ Museum & Winter Gardens, 18th October 5-6.30pm Gothic, terroris...

Several members of the School of Culture will be taking part in the Sunderland Literature and Creative Writing Festival this autumn. Click on the links below to find out who will be doing what and where. The festival starts on September 30th (the full schedule is here ). Spectral Visions book launch Against the Grayne: Learning about your Reiver ancestry Witchcraft and wizardry in Wearside Northern Gothic: Jane Harvey's The Castle at Tynemouth (1806) Eternity in an hour: William Blake and popular music Gothic Wearside World books to read before you die Apples and Snakes performance poetry Flash Fiction in a flash: how to write it and how to get it published Reading philosophy to lose weight The terrorist novel from Joseph Conrad's The Secret Agent to Hamid Mohsen's The Reluctant Fundamentalist Of Peter and Jemima: An introduction to the extraordinary life of Beatrix Potter 'Not quite a Geordie': The ethnonyms of North East England Wizards, goblins and forbidden l...

The journal Irish Studies Review is shortly to publish a special commemorative 1916 edition entitled ‘Commemorating Connolly’. Amongst the seven invited papers for the issue is an article by Dr Alison Younger entitled 'A terrible beauty is bought: 1916, commemoration and commodification'. Mindful of Benedict Anderson’s emphasis in Imagined Communities on the power of print culture – and print-capitalism – to shape and share national ideas and identities, her article offers a comparative analysis of the commemorations in Ireland of 1798 and 1916 by looking at commemorative ephemera: kitschy memorabilia, themed merchandise, newspaper cuttings and advertisements, handbills and inventively branded commodities, as important cultural texts which purveyed ideological values and meanings at the time of their production. It suggests that the consumer sphere allows us to shed light on the commemorative discourses these ephemeral objects produce, retelling and retailing the risings in ...

Colin Younger and Alison Younger have collaborated on a chapter which will appear in an edited collection called Haunted Landscapes: Super-Nature and the Environment (Rowman & Littlefield, 2016). The volume, edited by Ruth Heholt and Niamh Downing, examines the concept of landscape as a multitude of places and spaces haunted by spectres, memory, trauma and nostalgia in literature, art and film from Victorian times to the present. Colin and Alison's chapter is called 'The Supernatural Borders: on Reivers, Revenants and Redcaps'.

Scotland and the Easter Rising (Luath Press, 2016) features a chapter by Dr Alison Younger about two female revolutionary nationalists. Entitled 'Scotland is my home, but Ireland is my Country: Margaret Skinnider and Constance Markievicz', Alison's essay appears alongside the work of authors and academics such as James Kelman, Irvine Welsh and Owen Dudley-Edwards. The collection mixes fiction, memoir, poetry and essays to explore  Irish-Scottish relations in the context of the 1916 Easter Rising and its intersections with other movements, from Women’s Suffrage to the 2014 Scottish Independence Referendum. You can read The Scotsman's review of this volume here .

Café Culture is a series of free events for thinkers which aim to generate discussion, debate and a convivial atmosphere. Held in central Newcastle upon Tyne, they seek to provide a space for people to think, share ideas and to have a lively and inclusive discussion. On December 1st 2014 Dr Alison Younger gave a talk entitled 'Our Monsters: Ourselves' in which she explored the ways monsters reflect the cultural anxieties of the times in which they were spawned. Listen to the podcast here .