Join us for a special conversation about Homes, Hauntedness and Belonging , exploring what happens when the spectral enters the domestic and what haunted houses reveal about the worlds we inhabit. Together, Caitlin Blackwell-Baines , Essie Fox and Leon Craig will discuss how spectral encounters, genre expectations and historical accounts can all be analysed to consider who belongs and who is left out. From Catherine’s clever feminist retelling of Wuthering Heights , to The Decadence ’s hedonistic nightmare holiday ensemble, and How to Build a Haunted House’ s erudite non-fiction journey from Strawberry Hill to Himeji Castle in Japan, these works interrogate familiar ideas of hauntedness and the stories we tell about our homes. Whom do we exclude and whom do we welcome inside? How can the past and present coexist? At heart, haunted houses are never just about ghosts. They are also about ownership, power, memory and the cultural anxieties of the places and times in which they appear. Gather round for troublesome ghosts, gothic drama and pre-Halloween atmosphere. Caitlin Blackwell Baines is an art historian and author, specialising in Georgian art and architecture. Born in Toronto, she later emigrated to the UK to pursue an MA from the Courtauld Institute of Art and a PhD from the University of York in art history. Upon completing her studies, she moved to the Isle of Bute off the Western coast of Scotland, and worked as a curator at Mount Stuart, a late Victorian Gothic Revival palace. When she isn’t visiting haunted houses and recording her ghost story-themed history podcast, Haunted Homes , Caitlin is based in East Sussex.

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