The Blue Weird

In this episode, Andrew Fehribach (researcher with the Roosevelt Institute for American Studies) speaks with Fredrik Blanc (PhD candidate at Manchester Metropolitan University) about his research on hybridity and monstrosity in gothic literature. Blanc specializes in “the weird” and its relationship with the ocean, environmentalism, and the blue humanities. He studies how these
intersections can be used for people to find connection in “absolute alterity.” Along with his specialization, their conversation touches on two environmental subfields of gothic studies: the nautical gothic and the eco-weird. The focus of the interview is on the gap in knowledge related to elemental connections, in this case water, with the gothic in the hopes of creating a “blue weird” to continue research in this field.