A Curious Invitation present London Month of the Dead
THE VAMPIROLOGY OF COVID-19 - The Folklore of Contagion
A Live, Illustrated Zoom Talk with historian Nick Groom
Wednesday 28th October 2020 at 7:00 pm

Nick Groom’s talk will approach the coronavirus pandemic from a cultural perspective, suggesting how supernatural agents such as vampires can help us to make sense of the crisis. Nick will describe the cultural history and folklore of contagion, from the living dead to contemporary fake news, arguing that as well as scientific and political measures we also need to deal with the imaginative culture generated by the disease. He will focus on how we can ‘think with vampires’, using the figure as a thought experiment with which we can probe our understanding of contemporary issues.

Tickets £4 early bird available for a limited time only including a 20% donation to NHS Charities Together. Please click here to purchase.

Nick Groom
Nick Groom is Professor of Literature in English at the University of Macau, an author on subjects ranging from the history of the Union Jack to Thomas Chatterton. He has edited several books and regularly appears on television, radio, and at literary festivals as an authority on English Literature, seasonal customs, J. R. R. Tolkien, the ‘Gothic’, and ‘British’ and 'English' identities. Due to his extensive work on the Gothic, especially on the history of vampires, he has become known as the ‘Prof of Goth’ in the media. He has written several articles on the Goth scene, including essays on the singer-songwriter Nick Cave, as well as editing classics such as Matthew Lewis’s The Monk and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (Oxford University Press). With Prof. William Hughes, Nick has also edited a special issue of the journal Critical Quarterly: the subject of the issue is ‘CoronaGothic: Cultures of the Pandemic’, and it will be published in November 2020.

PLEASE NOTE - This talk will take place virtually via Zoom. Ticket sales will end at 5:00 pm BST on the day of the lecture. A link to the conference will be sent to the email used at checkout at 6:00 pm BST on the day of the event. Please email suzette@acuriousinvitation.com in the event your link fails to arrive. Please note this talk will be recorded and can be sent free of charge to ticket holders by request.