This paper charts the changing definition of ‘necromancy’ throughout Christian history, and explores the reasons why ‘dead-speaking’ becomes ‘black magic’ within medieval Christian discourses and later occult scholarship. The paper contends that the doctrines of Purgatory and intercession compromise Christianity’s relationship with the dead,…[Read more]

This presentation responds to Tanya Krzywinska’s 2015 paper ‘The Gamification of Gothic Coordinates in Videogames’, which discusses the awkwardness of the video game environment as a ‘space’ in which the Gothic narrative can unfold, and calls for more specific analysis of individual game texts to deepen our grasp of genre functions in gaming. K…[Read more]

The early 1990s saw a kind of crystallisation in gaming aesthetics, centred on games that either squinted towards Gothic or outright claimed a place in the culture and tradition: Warhammer 40,000 and Vampire: the Masquerade on the tabletop, Alone in the Dark and Wolfenstein on the PC. These games are genre-defining, persistent, and – to varying…[Read more]