The Art History of Folk Horror & Women

Why are we so drawn to stories and images of haunted landscapes, ancient rituals, and the dark side of the natural world? And why are these narratives of folk horror so often tied to female figures?  

Join Dr Billie Gavurin in exploring the relationship between gender, art, and folk horror. Focusing on the 19th and early 20th century, we will question the ways women and femininity are portrayed in folk horror literature and visual art. Ultimately, we will shed light on what it means to be a woman at a time where folk custom, superstition, and long-entrenched patterns of thought collided with industrialisation, rapid cultural changes, and the early feminist movement. 

Doors open at 4pm, talk starts at 4:30pm - come down early to grab a good seat!

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Speaker Bio:

Dr Billie Gavurin is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Birmingham. She is interested in the relationship between myth, folklore and evolutionary theory in late nineteenth and early twentieth-century culture. Her PhD at the University of Bristol focused on animal-human hybrids and Darwinism in Victorian culture, and she then worked as a lecturer there for two years. She is currently working on a research project about fantastical depictions of prehistoric humans between the 1850s and the 1950s. She has published articles on Algernon Blackwood and H. G. Wells, and her first monograph, Darwinian Monsters at the Fin de Siècle, is under contract for publication with Palgrave MacMillan. Billie is enthusiastic about research communication and public outreach - she has previously given public-facing talks at the University of Bristol, and in 2023 organised a free and open-to-all conference on the Greek god Pan and the Ecogothic. 

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