Episode 11 - Dr Jen Baker - The Child and the Afterlife in Gothic Literature

Victorian Legacies

In this episode I'm joined by Dr Jen Baker, where we discuss her interest in the spectral child and representations of the child in death. We talk about how the legacy of these representations in the nineteenth century linger to this day, through angelic suggestions in Facebook memorials, to the horrific representations of the demonic child in horror films. We discuss her upcoming monograph which will look into these ideas in more detail. ,
About my guest:
Dr Jen Baker is a permanent Teaching Fellow in C19th and C20th Literature at the University of Warwick and an Early Career Visiting Research Fellow at the Centre for Death and Society, University of Bath. She is currently working on her first monograph, Spectral Embodiments of Child Death in the Long Nineteenth Century, which is under contract with Edinburgh University Press. She is also Guest Editor of the latest edition of Gothic Studies - a special issue on "Gothic and the Short Form" and has published on a range of material relating to “the child” figure, childhood, and the Gothic, Most recently, a chapter on pronouns and the spectral child in Victorian ghost stories and an article on guardianship of the ghost child forthcoming in a special issue of Women's Writing.
For more information on Jen's work, check out the links and details below:
https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/english/people/drjenbaker/
Check out Jen's recommended sources, which she mentioned in our episode:
Sarah Waters - The Little Stranger
Nick Murphy - The Awakening
Jen Baker (editor) - Minor Hauntings: Chilling Tales of Spectral Youth
Episode Credits:
Episode Writer, Editor and Producer: Emma Catan
Music: Burning Steaks (by Stationary Sign) - obtained via EpidemicSound
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