The second annual Haunted Futures Conference took place in the Department of Film and Screen Media from the 29th to the 30th of October 2024

13 Nov 2024

In addition to the conferences sustained focus on hauntology and the ghost as symbol for radical social justice, this year’s conference welcomed papers on “The Future of Folklore” and asked delegates to consider how folklore can usefully combat and destabilise systemic injustice.

There were 22 research papers presented, as well as a creative showcase featuring poetry, prose and film. Keynote speaker Joan Passey (University of Bristol) delivered a paper entitled “Queer Ecologies of the Maritime Gothic: Coasts, Ghosts and Vampiric Hosts”. Creative Keynote Ailbhe Callanan (University of Brighton) considered the relationship between her printmaking work and the geography and folklore of her native North Cork.

The conference will return next year and following the success of the previous two years, conference organisers Ellen Scally and Rachel Gough have elected to create the Haunted Futures Network a dedicated research network for scholars whose work engages with themes of hauntology.