#Gothiciser

[diaryofaphilosopher]

"Simultaneously narrated as a paradisiacal terrain of sensuality and opulent beauty, and a hellish space of hidden terrors and masked monstrosities [...], the tropics have long been employed as an expression for Western narratives of cultural fears and desires for domination. Imagines and Gothicised as the birthplace of the ultimate Other⎯one to be 'civilised' or eradicated by modern Western forces⎯tropical and sub-tropical milieux have been used as a vehicle for imperialist and colonial discourses. [....] Tropical Gothic incorporates such othering discourses, but it also subverts them by situating them alongside reimaginings of the relationship between the Western/Northern (as centre) and the Tropics (as marginal)."

— Anita Lundberg, Katarzyna Ancuta & Agnieszka Stasiewicz-Bieńkowska, "Tropical Gothic: Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences."

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[theirishaesthete]

Well Fort

Hillsborough Fort, County Down has been considered here before (see Hillsborough Fort « The Irish Aesthete) but on that occasion the Irish Aesthete was unable to gain access to the building at its centre. Completed c.1650 by Colonel Arthur Hill, the little square forthouse was Gothicised just over a century later, perhaps to the designs of Christopher Myers and, having been a place of defence…

[bedlessbug]

NZ Gothic

Warping the Familiar - Jennifer Lawn

(of the works in the book) "we have given preference for inclusion to contemporary pieces that convey a sense of deep time and which emphasise local apporiations of national and international influences. so the artists and writerd represented here are all travellers in time and space."

"threshold from the material world to beyond"

"William Schafer deems a sense of 'sinister and unseen forces' to be an endemic in modern New Zealand culture." William Schaffer Mapping the Godzone.

"To say that gothic appears eveywhere seems somehow smug; when gothic becomes a generalised condition it looses its capcaity to ambush us. Gothic is too mobile and unstable for that. Perhaps the best way to describe gothic's location, then, is to say it could be anywhere. This means treating gothic as a mode, not a genre: a way of doing and seeing, adaptable across dislocations of culture, time, and space, rather than a substantive category.... Gothic works in a manner more akin to a shifting warp of the familiar. in this it shares qualities with its close relative, erotics: just as any part of the body may be eroticised, so any content, location, moment or frequency may be perversely and unpredictably gothicised. gothic touches upon and skews the ordinary-world dimensions of domesticity, decorative form and psychological balance, it troubles them with aberration, with something that ought not be there."

"internal spaces and the architectural facades that belie these spaces remain a powerful and familiar domain for the concentration of gothic energies. This feature of gothic phenomenology not only survives migration to the new world, but if anything intensifies through unflinching depictions of domestic life and the sick nuclear families associated with it."

[thesimpireblr]

Welcome to Sims Petersburg Imperial Palace!! A private tour Palace State Apartments!!

(sorry in advance for the very long post 😅 I’m the worst on selecting photos!! Hope you like it as much as I’m loving rebuilding it)

The visit of Sims Petersburg Imperial Palace (renovated versions) will start… Their Imperial Majesties granted you access to tour their official residence.

This tour will be dedicated to the Palace state apartments 

Passing through the inner Courtyard and climbing the grand ramps we enter The Imperial Palace through the main vestibule into the Jordan Gallery, a grand space composed of three corridors that lead all distinguished guests into the Palace Main stairCase, The Jordan Staircase. We invite you to follow us climbing the stair case to continue your exclusive tour.

Upon arriving in the main floor of the Imperial palace through the grand StairCase you will have access to the tow state apartment wings, in one side you find the Neva Enfilade (composed by the Fore-Hall, Nicholas Hall, the Concert hall and the Malachite room) and in the other side you find the Great Enfilade (composed by the Fields-Marshals Hall, the Small Throne room, the Armorial Hall, the war Gallery of 1812 and the Large Throne room)

We will start our tour in the Neva Enfilade, a beautiful set of rooms overlooking Neva River…

The first hall of this grand enfilade is the Fore Hall, a grand pink marble hall that sets the mood for the grandeur of the the palace…

Normally used to receive guest for state banquets and balls, when they do not happen in the Large Throne room, next if you wish to follow me, we will proceed to the…

… Nicholas Hall, the main hall of the Neva Enfilade, intended for official state cerimonies and balls with and astonishing view over the lake. Today you have the rare chance of seeing the first Christmas decorations being hung… it is still a long way until the palace is ready for Christmas… Next we can find the…

… Concert Hall, the final hall of the Neva Enfilade of state rooms, this hall has the name indicates is used for Imperial Concerts and to place the orchestra in for the grand ball in the Nicholas Hall.

This amazing state room is also used as a ball room for smaller events known as the “concert balls” and for small private evenings hosted by the Imperial Family. Attached to this room we find…

… the Malachite room, its name comes from the amazing stone used on the decorations, the columns, pilasters, fireplaces and vases…

This room serves, mainly, as the the Dowager Empress apartment formal drawing-room but it is also opened for the Neva Enfilade for grand occasions. Following our tour we will find a more private family rooms the...

... the Small Dining Room. This room is normally used by the Imperial Family for family dinners, tea and serves also as HIM the Dowager Tsarina Private dining room.

If we continue though the door ahead we will find the... 

...Moorish  Dining room. Normally used for large family gatherings, small banquets and for private dinners with visiting dignitaries and friends.

This large room connects the Neva enfilade, the Dowager Tsarina apartments, the Simnov Dynasty Portrait Gallery and the Tsar Private apartments.

now lets continue our tour and see one of them most...

interesting room of the palace, The Rotunda. This amazing and large circular room connects the private apartments of the Palace with the Neva Enfilade State rooms. from one side we enter the Moorish Dining room and from the other the dark corridor, the part of the Imperial couple private apartments.

This room as been used for various events such as dinners, balls, concerts and receptions. It has become one of HIM Tsarina Alexandra favorite spaces within the Imperial Palace.

Now we will start our way to the Great Enfilade state rooms,…

… we will take the Simnov Dynasty Portrait Gallery, this large corridor connects the private apartments wing to the state apartments of the Great Enfilade, stretching behind the Neva Enfilade state rooms. In the wall we can find portraits of all member of the dynasty. As we make our way through the gallery, if you look to your right…

…we find the Imperial Winter garden. Right in the center of the palace and overlooking the interior courtyard, it was created in order to showcase a grand collection of exotic plants. Her Imperial Majesty loves to spend the long winter in this room, using it as a afternoon tea drawing room.

Continuing our visit, in the end of the gallery we find the…

… Fields-Marshals Hall, this great hall is the first of the Great Enfilade. This set of room runs perpendicular to the Neva Enfilade, connecting the grand staircase with the Great Church of the palace (unfortunately still under construction).

The hall also connects the state rooms to the Ministry of the Court apartments, offices and the small Hermitage building.

In religious festivals and important court occasions, members of the Imperial Family process ceremonially from the private apartments, through the Neva Enfilade and the Great Enfilade state rooms to arrive at the Great Church or the Large Throne room. 

As we continue the tour of this grand Hall we pass through the central door, framed by an enormous portico paired by columns, to enter the…

… Small Throne room of the Imperial palace. It is in this richly ornamented room where His Imperial Majesty receives foreign ambassadors credentials and where guests great the Imperial Family when grand state occasions are held in this enfilade.

The throne in this room was created for the Tsarina in the XVIII century. It is usually used in the Large Throne room for state occasions. Today this throne is here replacing the grand imperial throne that is being restored.

Next to this room we will find the…

… Armorial Hall. This grand hall completely decorated with gold is one of the biggest in this enfilade.

Once the place of the large throne room and where grand balls and state occasions where held, when the palace was enlarged it lost its role and as a new Large Throne room (the St. George hall)  was created. 

According to the complicated court etiquette, this hall situated perpendicular to the new Throne room, became a Fore-Hall. Today it is still the place where the guests wait before entering the Large throne room in formal occasions. As we continue our visit we enter the…

… War Gallery of 1812. This large gallery is placed between the Armorial Hall and the Large Throne room and was build by converting a set of small rooms to celebrate the victory against Willow Creek Kingdom in 1812… 

… in the walls we find a collection of 300 paintings depicting all the generals and important people that helped in the winning of such war. By passing this grand gallery we enter…

… the Large Throne room or the St. George hall. This grand and majestic room was created during the palace enlargement to be the grandest and most important hall in the entire palace. Is in this room where the Imperial family host grand balls, state banquets and other important cerimonies.

In the center of this majestic room decorated with gold, marble and exotic woods, right in the opposite side to the main entrance, we find the Imperial Throne of Windenburg and San Myshuno Simpire. A master piece of the baroque period craftsmanship siting under a grand baldacchino In imperial style with the imperial coat of arms embroiled in gold. If we continue through the doors behind the throne e find the…

…Apolo room. This green marble room that serves as both an anteroom and as a connection between the oldest part of the palace and  the new wings of the extension. If you wish to follow me, returning to the Throne room …

… and back to the armorial Hall, we will continue our visit into the …

…Picket room. It is in this white room where the imperial guard would stand to protect the Imperial Family. 

It is still in this room, decorated with military themed high reliefs, that the imperial guard waits to receive the Tsar and the Imperial Family.  This room connects both the The Alexander Hall from one side, we will visit the hall in a minute, and on the other side the...

...Large church anteroom. This small room lavishly decorated in white and gold connects the Picket room and the War Gallery to the Imperial Palace Great Church, the Cathedral of the Vernicle.

Lets continue our tour and enter the...

...The Imperial Palace Great Church, the Cathedral of the Vernicle. This elaborated and very decorated Church is the main setting for religious celebration of the imperial family.

Throughout the centuries it has been the place for imperial weddings, christening and the last moments of a diseased member of the imperial family.

Lets now return back to the Picket room and follow to the last room of our tour were we find…

… The Alexander Hall. This room was created to commemorate the reign of Tsar  Alexander I...

...decorated in an unusual Gothicised version of classicism, it was also made to commemorate Simpire’s victory over the Willow  Creek Kingdom. This room, for its significance, is commonly used for smaller events and banquets.

Hope you enjoyed this tour through the state rooms of the Sims Petersburg Imperial Palace remake. Next in the making will be HIM Tsar Nicholas private apartments.

Hope you enjoyed our tour!! (now I’ll still have to finish the private apartments of the Tsar, Dowager tsarina and Tsesarevich for a future posts 😅)

[scotianostra]

Here's the Daddy!

Avondale House.

My destination today lies between Polmont and Linlithgow, fences were scaled and heavy wooded areas ventured through to bring you this, some you may be surprised to know there are no trespassing laws in Scotland!

Historic Scotland describe this as a 16th century with 18th century "Gothic" Symmetrical plan and elevation with turrets and battlements. Drip moulds over windows.

The Gothic spires are fantastic aren't they! I think the main fabric you see is 18th century, I read it was "Gothicised" back then.

Originally known as Clarkstone and owned by the Duke of Hamilton, by the time of the 19th century it was owned by a William Logan.

It was owned from 1922 by the Salveston family until being commandeered during WW2 as used as a Polish hospital.

The House and stables were sold in 2018 for about £200,000.

There's obviously a lot of work to be done here so I don't expect it to be back to its former glory anytime soon, but won't it be great if and when it happens.

[rotgospels]

ooh what is your research project on? 👀 (If you don’t mind me asking ofc)

i don’t mind! the working title is ‘Gothicising the Wendigo: The continued appropriation of native american spirituality/mythology within the horror genre’ - i’m using a postcolonial conceptual framework to look specifically at cannibalism as a metaphor for colonisation and how the binary of cannibal/civilised man starts to dissolve and shift throughout the evolution of the wendigo. I’ll also heavily discuss the problems with western culture’s incorporation of these stories (usually for horrific effect) within literature and film and it’s role in shaping that etc. 

[weirdletter]

Aeternum: The Journal of Contemporary Gothic Studies, Volume 6, Issue 2, edited by Ashleigh Prosser, Gwyneth Peaty, and Lorna Piatti-Farnell, December 2019. Info and free download: aeternumjournal.com.

Aeternum: The Journal of Contemporary Gothic Studies is an open-access biannual on-line journal. It offers peer-reviewed academic articles. The purpose of the Journal is to provide an emphasis on contemporary Gothic scholarship, bringing together innovative perspectives from different areas of study.

Contents:     Editorial Gothic Games – Gwyneth Peaty     Articles Bending Memory: Gothicising nostalgia in Bendy and the Ink Machine – Katharine Hawkins Homecomings: The haunted house in two interactive horror narratives – Erika Kvistad Playing with Call of Cthulhu: The Official Video Game: A transmedial Gothic experience – Hilary Wheaton Beyond the Walls of Bloodborne: Gothic tropes and Lovecraftian games – Vitor Casteloes Gama and Marcelo Velloso Garcia     Book Reviews Twenty-First-Century Gothic: An Edinburgh Companion. Maisha Wester and Xavier Aldana Reyes. (2019) New Music for Old Rituals. Tracy Fahey. (2018)

[spelunk]

i just got the url gothicise

[illusionordelusion-blog1]

REBLOG when you find the following content… Relevant Enthralling Bewitching Lyrical Original Gothicised According to your mood or need. Sharing another’s thought to voice out what you really think or feel deep down. Or just be appreciative of good old writing skills. Kudos to all the unsung writers out there. You rock.👊

ЯR

[joannalannister]

@theviscountconsett submitted:

Hi Lauren, I’m working on a pseudo-Victorian Westeros on Sims 2 (I like Sims and the Victorian aristocracy, and GoT, so I thought, combine them all! I enjoy it, but its somewhat masochistic as a Sims project I don’t recommend), which is fun to work out the intricacies of how the Westerosi nobility could’ve evolved (for instance I’ve decided Westeros has 16 Ducal families including the Paramounts & Martells etc. (the Lannisters take precedence behind the Starks and the Martells, because the Starks are older and the Martells are Princes, the Lannisters aren’t bitter over it at all, not at all) but that’s another ask). I’d like your opinion on Lannister related shit. 

I’ve divided up CR into two properties, The Rock proper, which is the ancient Ring-fort gothicised fabulously, and Casterly Court, which is a baroque/neoclassical palace with terraced gardens halfway down the mountain, and they have a typical townhouse in KL (Westerland House is based off of Lancaster House in London, of which Queen Vic said ‘I’ve come from my house to your palace’).

Would it be accurate to give them, as well as a significant property portfolio of KL townhouses, pretty much a residence in every corner of the 7 Kingdoms, including, but not limited to:

an almost never used but still convenient Mansion in Lannisport (separate from the Lannisport Lannister’s home)

Dower Houses for Duchesses of Westerlands Past (a mansion in Lannisport (seperate from both the Lannisport mansion), a country house in the Westerlands and a townhouse in KL)

a Hôtel Particulier in Oldtown; a Palazzo in Sunspear

Castles and Palaces in the North, Crownlands and Stormlands maintained for hunting and shooting

Estates in the Riverlands, Reach and Vale for farmland (because fuck the Tyrells, the Lannisters want in on the grain monopoly as well, you need to diversify if you’re gonna keep being rich)

and a Villa on the Dornish Riviera.

Or would that be going faintly overboard.

Though, its the Lannisters. Can you go overboard? I mean, they live in a castle carved from a mountain, with enough gold for at least one Olympic swimming pool, going overboard doesn’t exist.

(My thesis on their extensive property holdings is that A. their power stemming first goldmine means that Lannisters value tangible assets, like gold and land, more than anything, and in accumulation more than speculation B. they live on the most regal, grandiose Victorian scale ever, so even in the Industrial age, with Parliament etc. they’d still believe strongly in the Feudal idea of Land = Status, so the more land they have, the higher their station, the more important they are C. they have megalomania, they have to be the most beautiful, the most powerful, the most splendid, with the most land, the largest castle, the finest palace, because they’re Lannisters, its what they do)

Feel free to ignore, I waffle and its probably overwhelming.

Hi! I don’t really know how Sims works, but this sounds like quite the undertaking in terms of setting it and building the world and everything, wow! Very impressive!

I’m not sure what “accurate” means in terms of AU scenarios (isn’t any AU scenario inaccurate by definition?) but what you’ve described sounds very plausible and well thought-out. Granted, I don’t know very much about the workings of the (pseudo-)English aristocracy during the Victorian Era, but based on my (very) limited knowledge, it sounds reasonable. 

fwiw I believe in the text that the Lannisters of Casterly Rock own various properties in Lannisport, distinct from the totally separate holdings of their bannermen, the Lannisters of Lannisport, who are a totally separate House, so I agree with you there. As far as I can recall, the manse in KL that Tyrion rents is the only property we hear about outside of the Westerlands in the text, but in the modern era, property is much more of a commodity than it was in medieval times, so I don’t see why the Lannisters wouldn’t purchase properties in the various regions, given the chance. I like the various uses you’ve assigned to them, nice worldbuilding :)

[arrogant-hair]

Writing from the cobblestones: The urban gothic in A L McCann’s The White Body of Evening

The great cities of Europe are each suffused with their own urban history. They resonate with the character of their people, acting as defining symbols for what it is to belong to each nation. Historically, Australian identity is rarely coupled with the urban nature of its cities; instead it is defined by rural and convict history narratives. Author A L McCann, in his first novel The White Body of Evening, imagines an Australian city with the richness afforded to its European counterparts. McCann’s Melbourne of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries is a place filled with mysterious arcades and dangerous alleyways. Melbourne is transformed into a city filled with fertile possibility and dank ruin that seems not ineluctably bound to the colonial tradition that created it.

The novel was awarded the 2002 Aurelius prize for best Horror Novel. Stylistically, the novel has more in common with writers such as Edgar Allan Poe than Dean Koontz; it transcends contemporary notions of the horror genre by placing itself in the more traditional Gothic style. “Most people associate horror with a certain garish kind of genre fiction,” says McCann. “Surprisingly there’s not a lot that strictly conforms to that Stephen King/Poppy Z Brite notion of genre. As a result, horror is a much broader category than is imagined. It overlaps with fantasy, it overlaps with the more traditional Gothicism that I’m interested in.”

The White Body of Evening is ostensibly the story of the troubled Waters family. Beginning with the story of Albert Waters and his wife Anna, and following through to their children Paul and Ondine. Albert and Paul both harbour dark artistic temperaments that become thwarted within the confines of Australian conservatism; leading them both to lose whatever grip on sanity they had once held.

Perhaps Albert and Paul would have personally fared no better in Europe, but McCann gives us the sense that artistically, at least, they would have found a home. “Part of what motivated me to write this book was my interest in fin-de-siècle decadence that was much more aesthetically oriented than anything that, to my knowledge, existed in Australia,” he says. “I wanted to set up a clash of cultures that never really happened. To imagine what would happen to someone like Georg Trakl [German decadent poet] or Egon Schiele [Viennese Secession painter] if they wound up in Australia.”

Albert and Paul are tragic characters, bound to harm themselves, and through ingrained misogyny, the women in their lives. “One of the things I’m interested in is what happens to certain kinds of drives and impulses when they are not given adequate cultural outlets. There is a relationship between artistic endeavours and libidinal endeavours. If one is frustrated, the other seems to become more extreme. I wanted to set up the problem of these people in a society that is not forgiving of their artistic tendencies. I wanted to portray imploded characters as a result of that.”

Although the Waters drive the narrative of the novel, it is the city itself that is the central character. McCann evokes a seedy and uncanny version of the city, and one that is not altogether fictional. Much of the vital action in the book revolves around the Eastern Arcade, once a very real and extremely salubrious part of Melbourne. It was also the site of the “Gun Alley Murder” — a horrifying child murder — that occurred in the early twentieth century. Says McCann, “Just after the murder, sensationalist papers like The Truth were full of lurid evocations of the arcade and the alleys around it as sites of not just run-of-the-mill danger. Attention was drawn to the brothels there and the various kinds of early twentieth century types of subcultures around the occult for instance. There were fortune tellers and herbalists there. That crime has always fascinated me because of the way in which urban space is implicated in it.”

The Eastern Arcade and similar lost spaces enthral McCann. “The arcades were quite abject spaces. Businesses didn’t prosper there because they were off the main thoroughfare. Businesses didn’t prosper there because they were off the main thoroughfare. They gave rise to a kind of of defunct commercial culture.” Although writers such as Walter Benjamin and the Surrealists reclaimed the contemporary arcades of Paris as artistic spaces, their Antipodean counterparts never garnered positive attention. McCann rectifies this in his novel; “It’s one of the lost places in Melbourne that I was trying to recreate.”

In writing historical fiction, McCann has created a tradition which has previously been absent in much Australian writing — the Urban Gothic. “There’s no real sense of the Urban Gothic, with very few exceptions,” he says. “By that I mean Poe, Hoffmann, de Quincy. Where the city and it’s labyrinthine possibilities is a site of Gothicisation, which is one of the mainstays of nineteenth century European (and in the case of Poe, American) literature. There’s not a strong tradition of that in Australia. However, there is a very vital tradition of the Antipodean Gothic that is about the landscape. Marcus Clarke described the outback in terms of its ‘weird melancholy and phantasmagoria.’ There is a wonderful submerged tradition in Australian writing about that.”

McCann endeavoured to bring his writing to the urban environment as a response to Australian Fiction being prone to neglect such locales in favour of a different kind of mythology. “There is an outback mythos through to the early part of the twentieth century which I think is still being defined by the popularity of people like Tim Winton. I think people love reading these wistful descriptions of the coast. I wanted to shut all that out and start again, from the cobblestones, as it were.”

Interview and article by Nadine Whitney published in Fiend Magazine. 2003.

[4652paces]

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A post shared by Phil McIntosh Photography (@philmcintoshphotography)

Abandoned Avondale House, Falkirk - gothicised in 18th C. Owned by the Duke of Hamilton, then from 1922 by the Salveston family until being commandeered during WW2 as used as a Polish hospital #Scotland #abandoned #djimavicair Full video on my YouTube channel 📺 (at Polmont) https://www.instagram.com/p/B0RqJh-gzst/?igshid=1wcy66cgc8f8

[thesimpireblr]

Welcome to Sims Petersburg Imperial Palace

The visit of Sims Petersburg Imperial Palace will continue... Their Imperial Majesties granted you access to tour their official residence.

The tour will be divided in two, we will begin through the state apartments (the ones that I managed to finish in this huge build 😅) 

Passing through the inner Courtyard and climbing the grand ramps we enter The Imperial Palace through the main vestibule into the Jordan Gallery, a grand space composed of three corridors that lead all distinguished guests into the Palace Main stairCase, The Jordan Staircase. We invite you to follow us climbing the stair case to continue your exclusive tour.

Upon arriving in the main floor of the Imperial palace through the grand StairCase you will have access to the tow state apartment wings, in one side you find the Neva Enfilade (composed by the Fore-Hall, Nicholas Hall, the Concert hall and the Malachite room) and in the other side you find the Great Enfilade (composed by the Fields-Marshals Hall, the Small Throne room, the Armorial Hall, the war Gallery of 1812 and the Large Throne room) 

We will start our tour in the Neva Enfilade, a beautiful set of rooms overlooking Neva River...

The first hall of this grand enfilade is the Fore Hall, a grand pink marble hall that sets the mood for the grandeur of the the palace...

Normally used to receive guest for state banquets and balls, when they do not happen in the Large Throne room, next if you wish to follow me, we will proceed to the...

... Nicholas Hall, the main hall of the Neva Enfilade, intended for official state cerimonies and balls with and astonishing view over the lake. Today you have the rare chance of seeing the first Christmas decorations being hung... it is still a long way until the palace is ready for Christmas... Next we can find the...

... Concert Hall, the final hall of the Neva Enfilade of state rooms, this hall has the name indicates is used for Imperial Concerts and to place the orchestra in for the grand ball in the Nicholas Hall.

This amazing state room is also used as a ball room for smaller events known as the “concert balls” and for small private evenings hosted by the Imperial Family. Attached to this room we find...

... the Malachite room, its name comes from the amazing stone used on the decorations, the columns, pilasters, fireplaces and vases...

This room serves, mainly, as the the Dowager Empress apartment formal drawing-room but it is also opened for the Neva Enfilade for grand occasions. Now we will start our way to the Great Enfilade state rooms...

... we will take the Simnov Dynasty Portrait Gallery, this large corridor connects the private apartments wing to the state apartments of the Great Enfilade, stretching behind the Neva Enfilade state rooms. In the wall we can find portraits of all member of the dynasty. As we make our way through the gallery, if you look to your right...

...we find the Imperial Winter garden. Right in the center of the palace and overlooking the interior courtyard, it was created in order to showcase a grand collection of exotic plants. Her Imperial Majesty loves to spend the long winter in this room, using it as a afternoon tea drawing room. Continuing our visit, in the end of the gallery we find the...

... Fields-Marshals Hall, this great hall is the first of the Great Enfilade. This set of room runs perpendicular to the Neva Enfilade, connecting the grand staircase with the Great Church of the palace (unfortunately still under construction).

In religious festivals and important court occasions, members of the Imperial Family process ceremonially from the private apartments, through the Neva Enfilade and the Great Enfilade state rooms to arrive at the Great Church or the Large Throne room. 

As we continue the tour of this grand Hall we pass through the central door, framed by an enormous portico paired by columns, to enter the...

... Small Throne room of the Imperial palace. It is in this richly ornamented room where His Imperial Majesty receives foreign ambassadors credentials and where guests great the Imperial Family when grand state occasions are held in this enfilade.

The throne in this room was created for the Tsarina in the XVIII century. It is usually used in the Large Throne room for state occasions. Today this throne is here replacing the grand imperial throne that is being restored. Next to this room we will find the...

... Armorial Hall. This grand hall completely decorated with gold is one of the biggest in this enfilade.

Once the place of the large throne room and where grand balls and state occasions where held, when the palace was enlarged it lost its role and as a new Large Throne room (the St. George hall)  was created. 

According to the complicated court etiquette, this hall situated perpendicular to the new Throne room, became a Fore-Hall. Today it is still the place where the guests wait before entering the Large throne room in formal occasions. As we continue our visit we enter the...

... War Gallery of 1812. This large gallery is placed between the Armorial Hall and the Large Throne room and was build by converting a set of small rooms to celebrate the victory against Willow Creek Kingdom in 1812... 

... in the walls we find a collection of 300 paintings depicting all the generals and important people that helped in the winning of such war. By passing this grand gallery we enter...

... the Large Throne room or the St. George hall. This grand and majestic room was created during the palace enlargement to be the grandest and most important hall in the entire palace. Is in this room where the Imperial family host grand balls, state banquets and other important cerimonies.

In the center of this majestic room decorated with gold, marble and exotic woods, right in the opposite side to the main entrance, we find the Imperial Throne of Windenburg and San Myshuno Simpire. A master piece of the baroque period craftsmanship siting under a grand baldacchino In imperial style with the imperial coat of arms embroiled in gold. If we continue through the doors behind the throne e find the...

...Apolo room. This green marble room that serves as both an anteroom and as a connection between the oldest part of the palace and  the new wings of the extension. If you wish to follow me, returning to the Throne room ...

... and back to the armorial Hall, we will continue our visit into the ...

...Picket room. It is in this white room where the imperial guard would stand to protect the Imperial Family. 

It is still in this room, decorated with military themed high reliefs, that the imperial guard waits to receive the Tsar and the Imperial Family. Following to the last room of our tour we find...

... The Alexander Hall. This room was created to commemorate the reign of Tsar  Alexander I. Decorated in an unusual Gothicised version of classicism, it was also made to commemorate Simpire's victory over the Willow  Creek Kingdom. This room, for its significance, is commonly used for smaller events and banquets.

Hope you enjoyed this small tour through the state rooms of Sims Petersburg Imperial Palace. Since their Imperial Majesties are in residence until Christmas, we will open the door of the private apartments after their move to their Summer residence, the Catherine Palace.

Hope you enjoyed our tour!! (now I'll still have to finish the private apartments for a future post 😅) 

[weirdletter]

New Directions in Children’s Gothic: Debatable Lands (Children’s Literature and Culture), edited by Anna Jackson, Routledge, 2019. Info: routledge.com.

Children’s literature today is dominated by the gothic mode, and it is in children’s gothic fictions that we find the implications of cultural change most radically questioned and explored. This collection of essays looks at what is happening in the children’s Gothic now when traditional monsters have become the heroes, when new monsters have come into play, when globalisation brings Harry Potter into China and yaoguai into the children’s Gothic, and when childhood itself and children’s literature as a genre can no longer be thought of as an uncontested space apart from the debates and power struggles of an adult domain. We look in detail at series such as The Mortal Instruments, Twilight, Chaos Walking, The Power of Five, Skulduggery Pleasant, and Cirque du Freak; at novels about witches and novels about changelings; at the Gothic in China, Japan and Oceania; and at authors including Celia Rees, Frances Hardinge, Alan Garner and Laini Taylor amongst many others. At a time when the energies and anxieties of children’s novels can barely be contained anymore within the genre of children’s literature, spilling over into YA and adult literature, we need to pay attention. Weird things are happening and they matter.

Contents: List of Figures Series Editor's Foreword – Philip Nel Acknowledgements Introduction. New Directions in Children’s Gothic: Debatable Lands – Anna Jackson 1. ‘Do Panic. They’re Coming:’ Remaking the Weird in contemporary children’s fiction – Chloe Buckley 2. Cuckoo Songs: The Changeling as Hero – Geoffrey Miles 3. ‘These are troubling, confusing times’: Darren Shan’s Cirque du Freak as Post-9/11 Gothic – Philip Serrato 4. Figuring the Witch – David Punter 5. Ghostly Vestiges of Strange Tales: Horror, History and the Haunted Chinese Child – You Chengcheng 6. Girls in Lace Dresses: The Intersections of Gothic in Japanese Youth Fiction and Fashion – Emerald L. King and Lucy Fraser 7. The Gothic in Oceania – Erin Mercer 8. ‘The Gothic is part of history, just as history is part of the Gothic’: Gothicising History and Historicising the Gothic in Celia Rees' Young Adult Fiction – Catherine Spooner 9. Adolescent Angels and Demons: The Religious Imagination in Young Adult Gothic Literature – Rebecca Wigginton 10. ‘Mind to Mind’: The Gothic Loss of Privacy in the Twilight Saga and Chaos Walking Trilogy – Alexandra Valint 11. ‘THIS HILL IS STILL DANGEROUS’: Alan Garner’s Weirdstone Trilogy – A Hauntology – Timothy Jones List of Contributors Index

[weirdletter]

The Irish Journal of Gothic and Horror Studies, Issue #17, Autumn 2018. General editor: Dara Downey. Available at irishgothicjournal.net.

The Irish Journal of Gothic and Horror Studies (ISSN 2009-0374) is a peer-reviewed, interdisciplinary, electronic publication dedicated to the study of Gothic and horror literature, film, new media and television.

ARTICLES Mother, Monstrous: Motherhood, Grief, and the Supernatural in Marc-Antoine Charpentier’s Médée – Shauna Louise Caffrey ‘Most foul, strange and unnatural’: Refractions of Modernity in Conor McPherson’s The Weir – Matthew Fogarty John Banville’s (Post)modern Reinvention of the Gothic Tale: Boundary, Extimacy, and Disparity in Eclipse (2000) – Mehdi Ghassemi The Ballerina Body-Horror: Spectatorship, Female Subjectivity and the Abject in Dario Argento’s Suspiria (1977) Charlotte Gough In the Shadow of Cymraeg: Machen’s ‘The White People’ and Welsh Coding in the Use of Esoteric and Gothicised Languages – Angela Elisa Schoch/Davidson BOOK REVIEWS: LITERARY AND CULTURAL CRITICISM Jessica Gildersleeve, Don’t Look Now – Anthony Ballas Plant Horror: Approaches to the Monstrous Vegetal in Fiction and Film, ed. – Dawn Keetley and Angela Tenga (New York: Palgrave, 2016) Gustavo Subero, Gender and Sexuality in Latin American Horror Cinema: Embodiments of Evil (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016) Ecogothic in Nineteenth-Century American Literature, ed. by Dawn Keetley and Matthew Wynn Sivils (New York: Routledge, 2018) Monsters in the Classroom: Essays on Teaching What Scares Us, ed. by Adam Golub and Heather Hayton (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2017) Scottish Gothic: An Edinburgh Companion, ed. by Carol Margaret Davison and Monica Germanà (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2017) Catherine Spooner, Post-Millennial Gothic: Comedy, Romance, and the Rise of Happy Gothic (London, New York: Bloomsbury, 2017) Anna Watz, Angela Carter and Surrealism: ‘A Feminist Libertarian Aesthetic’ (London: Routledge, 2017) S.T. Joshi, Varieties of the Weird Tale (New York: Hippocampus Press, 2017) Phil Smith BOOK REVIEWS: FICTION A Suggestion of Ghosts: Supernatural Fiction by Women 1854-1900, ed. by J. A. Mains (Kent: Black Shuck Books, 2017) – Maria Giakaniki BOOKS RECEIVED FILM REVIEWS My Friend Dahmer, dir. by Marc Meyers (FilmRise, 2017) – Jess H. Anderson The First Purge, dir. by Gerard McMurray (Universal Pictures, 2018) – Caroline Egan The Ritual, dir. by David Bruckner (eOne Films, 2017) – Gerard Gibson Unsane, dir. by Steven Soderbergh (Bleecker Street, 2018) – Laura R. Kremmel The Cured, dir. by David Freyne (IFC Films, 2017) – Wendy Mooney Alien Covenant, dir. by Ridley Scott (Twentieth Century Fox, 2017) – Antonio Sanna Ghost Stories, dir. by Andy Nyman, Jeremy Dyson (Lionsgate Films, 2018) – Carly Stevenson A Quiet Place, dir. by John Krasinski (Paramount Pictures, 2018) – Richard Gough Thomas Jigsaw, dir. Michael Spierig, Peter Spierig (Lionsgate, 2017) – Gavin Wilkinson FILM AND TELEVISION REVIEWS Hereditary (dir. by Ari Aster, 2018) and Sharp Objects (HBO, 2018)  – Bernice M. Murphy Superstition (Syfy, 2017) – Miranda Corcoran Riverdale, Season Two (CW, 2018) – Richard Drumm The Strain (FX, 2014-17) – Thomas Sweet GAME REVIEWS Lingdong Huang, Normal Human Face Simulator (itch.io, 2017) – Ashley Darrow Blooper Team SA, Layers of Fear (Aspyr, 2016) – Clara A. Pimentel and Philipe de Freitas Melo NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

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Abandoned Avondale House, Falkirk - gothicised in 18th C. Owned by the Duke of Hamilton, then from 1922 by the Salveston family until being commandeered during WW2 as used as a Polish hospital #Scotland #abandoned #djimavicair Full video on my YouTube channel https://www.instagram.com/p/B0RorXCAQMA/?igshid=8fl7fyndq62s