CLASS DESCRIPTION

This lecture will introduce or reintroduce the Gothic, bringing up common aspects and
tropes of the genre and how they relate to and influence our views of women. Using these tropes as a starting point for exploration, we will discuss how viewing women under this myopic lens not only enacts and condones prejudice, violence, and fear of women, but how this bleeds into real life consequences in our othering of women as necessary means to uphold patriarchal values.
 
What is feminine is important – and often used in a derogatory manner in regards to women, characters who are coded LGBTQA+, the elderly, and children. These “feminised” characters are included in the subject of othering to invalidate their experiences, emotions, and often times their autonomy and lives as they are structured to make us hate them so that the violence inflicted upon them is seen as just. Violence, abuse, illness, and death are common for “feminised” characters within the Gothic. Depictions of death often range from beautiful, to playing the role of the “emotional death” leading to the physical death of the main male protagonist.
 
Gothic work of women writers and artists has opened discussions on systems of abuse and mistreatment of which they were subject to and were also able to write about their own thoughts, feelings, and desires. However, many of these books still fell victim to many of the classic tropes of the Gothic.
 
Moving into the contemporary, we will discuss the need for the continued evolution of the genre,
promoting varied voices and views to change and influence new tropes within the Gothic. As women continue to establish themselves at the forefront of the Gothic, we see how they have adapted it to regain autonomy and control over-self and how these positive changes in such a dominant genre will have a vast impact on our societal views of women.
 
ABOUT OUR LECTURER
 
N.A. Kimber and K.E. Donoghue-Stanford are twin sisters from Caledon, Ontario, Canada. N.A. Kimber is a writer and teacher and K.E. Donoghue-Stanford is an artist. The two frequently collaborate while also working on their individual careers. Together they co-founded the publication, Forget Me Not Press, an online Literary and Arts journal. They both have a deep love for literature, writing, and art.
 
Kimber and Donoghue-Stanford recently published their short story "Anatomy of Eve" a re-telling of Chapter 20 from the female-monster's perspective published in the online publication Grim and Gilded. They presented a lecture The Gothic: Girlish and Ghastly at the University of the Arts London in 2021, introducing students to the concept of the Gothic feminine, and each focuses on the Gothic in their own artistic practice. Individually, both sisters have experience teaching to various age groups, as well as hosting lectures to various schools and boards throughout Ontario.
 
The two consistently inspire one another and are proud and lucky to have a creative collaborator and a twin sister rolled into one.
 
Instagram: @kedonoghue_stanford and @nahydekimber
Website: https://www.nakimber.org/ and https://forgetmenotpress.net/
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This is a recording of a live session hosted by The Feminist Lecture Program in September 2024. The reading list for the class can be found alongside this rental.

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