Posted December 15, 2025

IGA book prize news: Chair role & good news about Book Secretary role

Sara Wasson takes a step back from her role as Book Prize Chair, and share an update about the new Prize Secretary role

Dear IGA friends,

Sara Wasson here! With enormous love and warmth, I’m posting that this year I need to step aside from being Chair of the IGA Memorial Book Prize Committees in order to pursue some–exciting but very time-consuming!–research commitments this coming spring/summer. The Co-Presidents have kindly suggested a temporary pause, so I hope to return in the 2027-28 round. It was a real honour to chair the prizes in 2024, and I’m wishing absolutely all the best to the incoming Chair, and will be cheering for them when they are announced.

I want to again honour and mention the hard work of the panellists, and indeed the Chair–not just myself but also all those who have gone before: David Punter, Dale Townshend, absolute greats! I also want to honour all the panellists, an extraordinary task–for people on two committees (including the Chair), last time they were reading 30 books, and it meant essentially generously giving up their summer in order to read and celebrate the work of this beautiful community. The panellists are heroes and to be cherished, and I loved working with you all! I hope to work with you in research and writing collaborations in the future.

I was privileged to win the Allan Lloyd Smith Prize twice, and these were two of the most precious and joyful experiences in my whole career. The IGA is not just a scholarly community–it’s a supportive, creative, and warm community. The IGA is an incredibly special organisation. It meant a great deal to have a chance to take the Prize forward.

I am sad to step aside this year but it is for positive reasons, namely research commitments that mean that I would not be able to give the prize the colossal attention it rightly requires.

Update about the Book Prizes Secretary Role

In other good news, the kind Co-Presidents are generously assessing whether some nominal payment may accrue to the Book Secretary role supporting the Chair. I support this wholeheartedly. To facilitate these good plans, the timeline for the secretary hire is being adjusted, and specifics on honorary nominal remuneration and a new deadline will be announced early next year. Applicants who have already sent in CVs can rest assured that their applications have been safely received and will be considered.

Monica, Xavi, Matt, Emily, Bronte, and every panellist, it’s been a pleasure to work with you on the Prizes. The IGA is in great hands! Go bats!

Warmly,

Sara Wasson

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Posted October 23, 2025 by Monica Germanà

Arctic Gothic: A new cfp for a Special Issue of Gothic Studies

An exciting new issue of Gothic Studies is in the making!

Call for Papers

 

Special issue of Gothic Studies (Issue 29/3 – Nov 2027)

 

Arctic Gothic: Imaginings, Ecologies and Politics

 

Edited by Krista Collier-Jarvis (Mount Saint Vincent University,  Monica Germanà (University of Westminster) and Sara Wasson (Lancaster University)

 

The Arctic has, historically, been conceived in Western writing as either a barren wasteland or as monstrous landscape. Either way, the aesthetics underpinning conventional depictions of the world’s northernmost regions have, arguably, been defined by the gothic paradigms of the sublime, the inhuman and the Other. This special issue of Gothic Studies delves into both historical and contemporary representations of the Arctic to unveil more nuanced understandings of the overlaps and intersections of the Gothic and the Arctic. Resisting the view of the Arctic as a homogenous and changeless ‘tabula rasa’, the articles included in this special issue will, instead, investigate the heterogeneities, inconsistencies and ambiguities found in the literal and figurative fissures of the Arctic landscape. As well as examining the intricacies of historical and contemporary cultural responses to the Arctic, the issue’s interdisciplinary scope will also incorporate an exploration of the complex ecologies and colonial entanglements that have always affected – and continue to inform – the Arctic.

 

Completed research articles will be 5,000 words inclusive of notes and references and will be due on 31 July 2026. The editors would particularly welcome contributions by Indigenous researchers.

 

While prospective contributors may wish to think beyond these suggestions, the Editors would be particularly interested in receiving proposals addressing some of these questions:

  • The Arctic and the vengeful dead: legacies of colonial and extractivist violence
  • Vibrant matter: Gothic representation of ice, snow and their vital materiality
  • The Arctic and grief: Ecological grief, mourning, and commemoration
  • Critical Plant Studies and plant-centric representations of Arctic biomes
  • Arctic coastlines as liminal spaces
  • Arctic extinctions: Melting permafrost and the return of the dead
  • Haunted Arctic and time: Geological past, spectral futures
  • Indigenous Arctic ‘monsters’: ‘Inuit’ Gothic and cultural (mis)appropriation
  • ‘Fairytales’ of the Arctic: Ice in the Western Gothic imagination
  • Bloody Arctic: Whaling, wounds and imperial violence
  • Arctic hysteria and ‘savage’ people: The Gothic Othering of Indigenous peoples

Please send (1) short bios and (2) 250-word abstracts to arctic.gothic.studies[@]gmail.com by 30 November 2025. Accepted authors will be notified by 15 January at the latest (with completed accepted papers due by 31 July 2026). Do get in touch with the guest Editors with any queries: Krista.Collier-Jarvis[@]msvu.ca, m.germana[@]westminster.ac.uk, and s.wasson[@]lancaster.ac.uk

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Posted October 22, 2024 by Jen Baker

The International Gothic Association Early-Career Essay Prize 2024-25

The essay competition is open to postgraduate students or postdoctoral scholars who are currently in good standing as IGA members. A postgraduate may be a current or recent Masters’ student (within two years of graduation) or a PhD candidate; a postdoctoral scholar is defined as someone who holds a PhD but does not hold a permanent academic post – this includes independent scholars.

Gothic Studies CoverThe International Gothic Association is pleased to invite submissions to their biennial Postgraduate Student Essay Prize.

The essay competition is open to postgraduate students or postdoctoral scholars who are currently in good standing as IGA members. A postgraduate may be a current or recent Masters’ student (within two years of graduation) or a PhD candidate; a postdoctoral scholar is defined as someone who holds a PhD but does not hold a permanent academic post – this includes independent scholars.

Entries must offer an original contribution to the field of Gothic Studies and not be under consideration for publication elsewhere.

The winning essay will be published in Gothic Studies (with revisions guided by the editors, as appropriate), the official journal of the International Gothic Association published by Edinburgh University Press. Its author will receive £50 from the International Gothic Association, and a year’s paid subscription to Gothic Studies. The publication issue for the winning article will be 28/1 (March 2026).

Essays should be formatted as a .doc or a .docx. and be between 5000 and 7000 words in length, inclusive of footnotes and bibliography, and should adhere to the Gothic Studies style guide.
The guide is available for download here:

https://www.euppublishing.com/page/gothic/submissions

To enter, email the following to Dr Jen Baker: J.Baker.5@warwick.ac.uk

Email Subject should be “IGA Postgraduate Essay Prize”

Attach a copy of your essay (as a .doc or .docx). This should be anonymised for blind review.

In the body of the email you should lists the following details:

  • your name and the title of your essay;
  • a current email address;
  • your present and past academic affiliations (University or similar);
  • If you are a current postgraduate, the name of the qualification for which you are studying andthe expected date of completion
  • For postdoctoral / independent entrants, the title of your submitted PhD andthe date of your submission;
  • a statement confirming the essay is your own original work, completed in the course of your study for the listed qualification.

The closing date for receipt of entries is 1st March 2025.  Late entries will not be considered. Entries will be judged by a panel drawn from the journal editorial board / IGA exec. The judges are not able to provide individual feedback on the essays.

Please direct any queries to J.Baker.5@warwick.ac.uk

Entrants will be informed of the outcome by June 2025.

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