British Academy Postdoctoral Research Associate
(2021-2025)
From 2021 to 2025 I was a Postdoctoral Research Associate working with Dr Maisha Wester, a British Academy Global Professor, on a project exploring the ways that horror and Gothic fiction influence discourses of race. A key output is an educational video game, Coded Black, and accompanying project website. My role included data collection and archival research as well as creating and developing the website and digital resources for the project focusing on anti-Black racism in Britain and America. We also collaborated on several academic and public facing events at the University of Sheffield including a project for the 2021 Being Human Festival.
Coded Black
An educational video game
Coded Black is a walking simulator video game with two scene: the first lets you explore an historical slave plantation and in the second you can walk through a city scene and visit places including a library, museum, church, cinema and an apartment block. In both scenes, you can interact with historical documents including photographs, newspaper and journal excerpts, and audio and video clips relating to the experience of Black communities.
I contributed to researching the primary material that is featured in the game, and edited the visual, textual, audio and video artefacts that appear in both scenes.
Gothic Futures
A Sheffield Summer Institute
Candyman
And the Whole Damn Swarm
Candyman and the Whole Damn Swarm was an online, international conference organised by the Centre for the History of the Gothic at the University of Sheffield and University of California, Riverside from 7-9 October 2022
The conference celebrated the 30th anniversary of Candyman and explored its legacy. We were delighted to welcome Kinitra Brooks, Tananarive Due, Robin R. Means Coleman, and Jon Towlson for our keynote panel, as well as special guests Win Rosenfeld, Sherwin Ovid, Bernard Rose and Tony Todd.
Alongside the conference, we also created an accompanying conference archive and online art gallery.
Cults, Cthulus, and Klansmen
The (Hi)stories within Lovecraft Country Symposium (20 May 2021)
This was an online symposium that explored Misha Green’s Lovecraft Country and the horrors of American history.
Alongside the symposium we also curated a symposium archive which features playlists, images, talks, resources and other materials relating to the symposium and the series.
Dr Mary Going 