Horrifying Children

Lauren Stephenson is a Lecturer in Film and Media Studies at York St. John University, UK. She specialises in teaching and researching on horror cinema, gender roles and representation in contemporary British and American cinema and American cinema and society. She has published on British Horror Television, the contemporary Gothic and women horror filmmakers.Robert Edgar is Associate Professor of Creative Writing in the York Centre for Writing at York St John University, UK. He is currently leading MA, MFA and PhD programmes. His teaching specialisms are in scriptwriting, adaptation and genre fiction. He has published widely on screenwriting, film language, popular music adaptation and science-fiction. John Marland is a Senior Lecturer in Literature Studies at York St John University, UK. He teaches gothic fiction, film adaptation and modern drama. His research interests include the use of silence on page, stage and screen. He has published on scriptwriting, visual semiotics and adaptation.

• List of FiguresList of ContributorsAcknowledgementsIntroduction: The Edwardian Legacy and Children’s FictionLauren Stephenson, Robert Edgar and John Marland (York St. John University, UK)Part I: Hauntings and Spectres1.‘What is it like to be dead and a ghost? Oh, do tell me Tom, I’ve been simply longing to know’: Hauntology and Spectrality in the 1989 BBC Television Series Tom’s Midnight GardenStella Miriam Pryce (University of Cambridge, UK)2. Coming of Age in The Owl Service: England and the Uncertain FutureFernando Gabriel Pagnoni Berns (University of Buenos Aires, Argentina)3. ‘Oh please, let us come undone!’ States of Independence: Female Temporality in the Supernatural Children’s Television and Literature of the 1970s and ‘80sFiona Cameron (Bangor University, North Wales) 4. ‘It came from beneath the sink’: Children’s Horror Television as an Uncanny MirrorMerinda Staubli (RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia)5. An Adult Nightmare: Garbage Pail Kids and the Fear of the Queer ChildMax Hart (independent scholar)6. The Transgender Twist: Mermen and Gender-nonconformity in Round the TwistJackson Phoenix Nash (independent scholar)7. Weird Doubling in Wes Craven’s Stranger in Our House (1978)Miranda Corcoran (University College Cork, Ireland) 8. Suburban Eerie: The Demon Headmaster (BBC1, 1996–8) and The Demon Headmaster (CBBC, 2019) as Neoliberal Folk Horror Adam Whybray (University of Suffolk, UK)9. ‘My Carnaby cassock’: Jimmy Savile, Jim’ll Fix It and Top of the PopsBenjamin Halligan (University of Wolverhampton, UK)Part II: Memory, Process and Practice 10. The Technological Uncanny: The Role of Memory Prosthetics in Hauntological PracticeMichael Schofield (University of Leeds, UK)11. The Pandemic and The BombFlannán Delaney (independent scholar)12. Killing a Cow on Kids’ TV: The Case of Die Sendung mit der MausAlexander Hartley (Harvard University, USA)13. Confronting Ghosts: The Inherited Horrors of the Kent State ShootingElizabeth Tussey (independent scholar)14. Creeping Dread in The Singing, Ringing Tree: East German Cinematic Fairytale as Children’s Tea-Time EntertainmentWayne Johnson (York St John University, UK) 15. ‘May cause drowsiness’: A (False) Memory of Weekday Morning Television in the Mid-1970s Through the Filter of Prepubescent Illness and SedationJez Conolly (independent scholar)16. Bleak Adventures in Kenneth Johnson's VKeith McDonald (York St John University, UK) 17. Don’t Turn Tail from Horror: Using Eco-Horror in the Secondary School ClassroomHollie Adams (independent scholar)Index

Horrifying Children presents a fascinating and multifaceted analysis of five decades of gothic and supernatural British children’s television shows and discusses the hauntological effects of these shows in (re)presenting the pre-War nostalgia and Post-war anxieties of British culture. We learn how the liminal figure of the child within the original 60’s and 70’s television series “haunted” subsequent generations of children in the 80s, 90s and 00s when the series were re-broadcasted. Addressing specifically how mysterious, spooky and ghostly children’s television effects the collective cultural memory of adults, Horrifying Children enriches our understanding of the deep impact of the figure of the child in visual narrative for each generation that observes it.