Keynote Speakers
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Dr. Catherine Spooner >>>
Reader in Literature and Culture, Lancaster University
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Catherine Spooner is Reader in Literature and Culture, at Lancaster University and co-President of the International Gothic Association. She has published widely on Gothic literature, film and popular culture, with a particular emphasis on fashion and dress. Her first book,
Fashioning Gothic Bodies
, traced the relationship between Gothic and clothing from the eighteenth century to the present and she has continued to write extensively on this topic, with highlights including chapters in the BFI’s
Gothic: The Dark Heart of Film
and the Victoria and Albert Museum’s
Alexander McQueen
. Subsequent books include
Contemporary Gothic
and three co-edited essay collections, most recently on the TV series
Twin Peaks
. Her latest book is
Post-Millennial Gothic: Comedy, Romance and the Rise of Happy Gothic
, published by Bloomsbury in February 2017. -
Professor David Roberts >>>
Dean of the Faculty of the Arts, Design and Media, Birmingham City University
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David Roberts is Pro Vice Chancellor and Dean of the Arts, Design and Media at Birmingham City University. He has held academic posts at the Universities of Bristol, Kyoto, Osaka, Oxford and Worcester. His monographs have been published by the University Presses of both Oxford and Cambridge, including his most recent study,
Restoration Plays and Players
(CUP, 2014). He has also written for leading journals including
Shakespeare Quarterly, ELH, The Review of English Studies and Cambridge Quarterly
.A National Teaching Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, he also maintains a profile in educational publishing. His latest title,
Games for English Literature
, was co-authored with Izabela Hopkins and published by Libri in 2016. Currently he is writing a biography of the dramatist George Farquhar and trying to complete his second novel. -
Deirdre Murphy >>>
Senior Curator, Historic Royal Palaces
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Deirdre Murphy is Senior Curator at Royal Historic Royal Palaces, with special responsibility for the Royal Ceremonial Dress Collection. As well as curating exhibitions and displays at Kensington Palace, she has also worked with collections at the Gallery of Costume in Manchester and the textiles and fashion collections at the V&A.
Deirdre studied History of Dress at the Courtauld Institute of Art. She lectures regularly on fashion history, museum interpretation and curating at London College of Fashion, Central Saint Martins and Leeds University. She has published articles in a range of scholarly publications, and has contributed to several Historic Royal Palaces books. Deirdre is Chairman of the Costume Society of Great Britain.
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Dr. Mary Harlow >>>
Associate Professor in Ancient History, University of Leicester
- Mary Harlow is Associate Professor in Ancient History at the University of Leicester. She came to Leicester after a period at the Centre for Textile Research at the University of Copenhagen (2011-13). Her research interests range from dress in the Roman period to age and ageing in Antiquity. Her recent published works include the edited volumes: Greek and Roman Dress. An Interdisciplinary Anthology (Oxbow Books, 2014) and A Cultural History of Dress and Fashion in Antiquity(Bloomsbury 2016).
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Pauline Rushton >>>
Senior Curator of Costume and Textiles, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool
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Pauline Rushton is the head of the Decorative Art Department at National Museums Liverpool, where the collections include ceramics, glass, metalwork, jewellery, furniture and musical instruments, dating from the medieval period to the present day. Her specialist field is costume and textiles and she curates a collection of more than 20,000 items covering 300 years of fashion history. Her publications include works on 18th century dress, 19th and 20th century bridal wear and costume from the 1920s and 1930s.
Pauline is also curator of Sudley House, formerly the home of the Holt family, Liverpool ship owners and merchants. The house is unique as it retains the only surviving Victorian merchant art collection in Britain still hanging in its original location.
