Thursday Talk – Dracula

We know about the cobwebbed coffins in the castle, the shape-shifting bat, and the be-fanged and blood-thirsty vampire. These have all become cliched tropes of the Gothic imagination. Helena Habibi returns to explore the Gothic anxieties lurking within the mass of typewritten documents that comprise Bram Stoker’s iconic novel, posing the question: is this shocking affront to Victorian sensibilities ultimately a cosy return to the conventional?