Magical Objects and the Gothic Imagination in Post-War Britain
The Lee B. Anderson Memorial Lecture by Lynda Nead (The Courtauld Institute of Art)

This lecture examines the presence and power of the Gothic imagination in British art and culture in the 1940s and 1950s. Focusing on a film, a painting, a photograph, and a novella, Lynda Nead explores how objects from the past find their way into the present, upsetting the aspirations and certainties of post-war reconstruction and modernization. In contrast to the realist tradition that characterized postwar British culture (evoking good taste, social responsibility, and national identity), these magical objects point to another tradition—one that expresses sexual desire, emotion, melodrama, and horror.

April 23 at 6pm
38 West 86th Street, BGC Lecture Hall