Introduction: ‘To darken the day and brighten the night’: Clive
Barker, dark imaginer – Sorcha Ní Fhlainn
Part I: Origins
1 ‘Visions of another Albion’: the Books of Blood and the horror of
1980s Britain – Darryl Jones
2 ‘Marks of weakness, marks of woe’: the Books of Blood and the
transformation of the weird – Kevin Corstorphine
3 When fantasy becomes reality: social commentary of 1980s Britain
in Clive Barker’s Weaveworld – Edward Timothy Wallington
Part II: Screening Barker
4 The joyless magic of Lord of Illusions – Harvey O’Brien
5 Drawing (to) fear and horror: into the frame of Clive Barker’s
The Midnight Meat Train and Dread comic and film adaptations –
Bernard Perron
6 Beauty, pain and desire: gothic aesthetics and feminine
identification in the filmic adaptations of Clive Barker – Brigid
Cherry
Part III: Labyrinths of desire
7 Clive Barker's queer monsters: exploring transgression, sexuality
and the other – Mark Richard Adams
8 Breaking through the canvas: towards a definition of
(meta)cultural blackness in the fantasies of Clive Barker – Tony M.
Vinci
9 ‘A far more physical experience than the cinema affords’: Clive
Barker’s Halloween Horror Nights and brand authorship – Gareth
James
Part IV: Legacy
10 ‘What price wonderland?’: Clive Barker and the spectre of
realism – Daragh Downes
11 Clive Barker’s late (anti-)horror fiction: Tortured Souls and
Mister B. Gone’s new myths of the flesh – Xavier Aldana Reyes
12 The Devil and Clive Barker: Faustian bargains and gothic
filigree – Sorcha Ní Fhlainn
Index
Sorcha N Fhlainn is Senior Lecturer in Film Studies and American Literature, and a founding member of the Manchester Centre for Gothic Studies at Manchester Metropolitan University
'No less boundary-crossing and boundary-pushing than the
fantastique oeuvre of its subject matter, Sorcha Ní Fhlainn’s
edited collection ranges superbly across Clive Barker’s dark
fiction, films, fandom, theme park experiences, action figures, and
"anti-horror". It is unafraid to provoke critical debate, alert to
established ways of reading Barker, and sometimes even wary of the
entrapping danger of a celebratory blurb or endorsement. But have
no fear, because I have seen the future of scholarly work on Clive
Barker… and its name is Dark Imaginer.'
Professor Matt Hills, author of Fan Cultures and The Pleasures of
Horror
This collection of essays provides a fascinating account of the
work of writer, director and artist Clive Barker. Barker emerges as
an important, complex and challenging figure whose fantasy-based
outputs across various media forms are capable of sustaining a
range of critical approaches and treatments. It might be argued
that the most significant and influential part of Barker’s career
lies in the 1980s and 1990s, but the collection also finds
interesting and provocative things to say about the work done by
Barker since that period. I do not doubt that Clive Barker – Dark
Imaginer will find its place in the burgeoning fantasy, gothic and
horror studies scene.
Peter Hutchings, Professor of Film Studies, Northumbria
University
‘All in all, Dark Imaginer fills the gap in the academictreatment
of Barker’s works and gives a good overview of his beauty
marks,warts and all.’
Dejan Ognjanovic, Ninth Circle
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