The Gothic novel calls to mind abandoned castles, ghosts and vampires. But perhaps it is time to look beyond these familiar tropes. Often taking their inspiration from Ann Radcliffe's The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794), there exists an interesting and understudied corpus of late eighteenth-century popular gothic fiction written by women authors. Writing against the increasing conservatism in British politics in the wake of the French Revolution, these authors often chose female protagonists fond of composing poems. These poems appear to be marginal, but they in fact suggest a profound rethinking of female agency and emotions. Listen to how Yasemin Nurcan Hacıoğlu, senior lecturer in English at NTNU and associate researcher with LCE, in conversation with Stijn Vervaet, discusses writing as a form of extended cognition and as a method of constructing radically unconventional feelings and decisions. Follow their journey from eighteenth-century England all the way to post-Napoleonic Russia.

Post-production: HF:Studio – Baoxin Long & Bernt Brundtland

Written alternative