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Professor Catherine Spooner collaborates with The Dukes on its annual horror festival, Dark Dukes (2022-24), rebranded as Spooked in 2025. Partially funded by BFI Film Hub North, the week-long festival presents a rich programme of horror-themed events, with academics from the School of Arts contributing public lectures, film introductions, author and director Q&As, readings from their creative work, and live recordings of The Ghost Story Book Club podcast.
In 2023, the festival hosted the conference 'Don't Keep the Wicker Man Waiting': Folk Horror Fifty Years After The Wicker Man, bringing together scholars and enthusiasts to explore the film's enduring legacy. In 2024 and 2025, the festival also featured a Gothic and horror study day for Lancaster students.
Our research explores and constructs speculative worlds, especially though Gothic,science-fiction and fantasy. We seek to re(mediate) the world in which we findourselves and to do so for a diverse range of audiences: young readers, communitygroups, academic audiences and the wider public.
