StokerCon 2026: Full Schedule

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8:15am EDT

Friday June 5, 2026 8:15am - 9:30am EDT

"Cannibal Horror in Italy"
Spencer Stoller

"“Everything is for Sale”: Commensurability and the Horror of Capitalist Forms in Stephen King’s Needful Things"
Eric Otto

"Occult Wars in the Age of Aquarius: The Battle on the Bookshelf"
Katherine Kerestman

Speakers

Spencer Stoller

English major at Scripps College and aspiring writer.

Eric Otto

Professor and Chair, Department of Integrated Studies, Florida Gulf Coast University

Eric Otto is Professor of Humanities and Chair of the Department of Integrated Studies at Florida Gulf Coast University.

Katherine Kerestman

Author & Independent Scholar

Katherine Kerestman is the author of Lethal (PsychoToxin Press, 2023), Creepy Cat's Macabre Travels: Prowling around Haunted Towers, Crumbling Castles, and Ghoulish Graveyards (WordCrafts Press, 2020), and Haunted House and Other Strange Tales (Hippocampus Press, 2024), and a... Read More →

Friday June 5, 2026 8:15am - 9:30am EDT
Butler

Ann Radcliffe Academic Conference

9:45am EDT

Panel B: "Strangely are Our Souls Constructed": On Frankenstein

Friday June 5, 2026 9:45am - 11:00am EDT

Butler

“Creation, Grief, Ambition, and the Divine in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (1818)”
Cynthia Pelayo

"Created by Misogyny: The Bride Archetype in James Whale’s The Bride of Frankenstein (1935)"
Stephanie Wytovich

"“I Am Fearless and Therefore Powerful”: Bisexuality, Belonging, and Reanimated Revenge in Frankenstein"
Gwendolyn Kiste

"Frankenstein and his Creature: Narcissism's Tragic Consequences"
George Hagman

Speakers

Cynthia Pelayo

Cynthia Pelayo is an International Latino Book Award winning poet and author.

She is the author of Loteria, Santa Muerte, The Missing, Poems of My Night, Into the Forest and All the Way Through, Children of Chicago, Crime Scene, The Shoemaker’s Magician, as well as dozens of sta... Read More →

Stephanie M. Wytovich

Gwendolyn Kiste

George Hagman

Friday June 5, 2026 9:45am - 11:00am EDT
Butler

Ann Radcliffe Academic Conference

12:30pm EDT

Panel C: "Hell with the Lid Taken Off": Steeltown and the USA

Friday June 5, 2026 12:30pm - 1:45pm EDT

Butler

"Pittsburgh as Embodiment of Zombie Culture in Four Snapshots"
Kevin Wetmore

"Female Representation in the Living Dead Films of George A. Romero"
Victoria Timpanaro

"George A. Romero's Martin and Mental Health in Postindustrial Communities"
Ande Thomas

"Nihilism, Gun Violence, and The Long Walk (2025)"
Emma Johnson-Rivard

Speakers

Kevin Wetmore, Jr.

Volunteer Coordinator, HWA LA

Victoria Timpanaro

Graduate Student/Educator/Film Scholar, Rutgers University

Educator and film scholar. PhD candidate with focus on women in genre film.

Ande Thomas

Editor in Chief, What Sleeps Beneath

Ande Thomas is a life-long horror fan, supporting member of the Horror Writers Association and a founding member of What Sleeps Beneath. His work centers on original academic research that links narrative and plot to current political and social discourse. As a standing judge of the Pittsburgh Moving Picture Festival, Ande looks for independently made films that disrupt and challenge the definition of the horror genre... Read More →

Emma Johnson-Rivard

Friday June 5, 2026 12:30pm - 1:45pm EDT
Butler

Ann Radcliffe Academic Conference

2:00pm EDT

Panel D: Worlds of Horror

Friday June 5, 2026 2:00pm - 3:15pm EDT

Butler

"The Egg-Shaped Universe: Séances, Channelings & Hilma af Klint’s Transcendent Paintings"
Shannon Kearns

"Becoming the Apocalypse: The Indigipoetics of Horror"
Naomi Simone Borwein

"Haunted Tongues: Multilingualism and Gothic Elements in Gambian Literature"
Modou Lamin Age-Almusaf Sowe

"Generic Rhetorical Violations and Reconfiguration of Fear in Dead by Daylight"
Janice Day

Speakers

Shannon Kearns

Naomi Simone Borwein

Janice Day

Friday June 5, 2026 2:00pm - 3:15pm EDT
Butler

Ann Radcliffe Academic Conference

3:30pm EDT

Panel E: Gendered Tensions and Feminist Rebellions

Friday June 5, 2026 3:30pm - 4:45pm EDT

Butler

"Locking the Door from the Inside: marriage, surveillance, and institutional power in horror cinema"
Mo Moshaty

"Dracula's Monstrous Femininity"
Rachel Allison

"What's in a Name? Cassandra in horror: resilience through tragedy"
Cassandra O'Sullivan Sachar

Speakers

Mo Moshaty

Writer, Lecturer, Producer and Journalist, NightTide Magazine/Mourning Manor Media

Mo Moshaty is a multi-award-winning horror writer, producer, and international lecturer whose work explores trauma, folklore, and the boundaries of fear through a diverse and inclusive lens. She is the author of Maddalena – 206 Word Stories (2022), Henry – A Quaint and Curious... Read More →

Cassandra O’Sullivan Sachar

Professor of English/Author

Cassandra O’Sullivan Sachar is a Pennsylvania writer, editor, and English professor who teaches creative writing, composition, and composition theory classes. A former secondary English teacher in Delaware public schools , she received her Doctorate of Education with a Literacy... Read More →

Friday June 5, 2026 3:30pm - 4:45pm EDT
Butler

Ann Radcliffe Academic Conference

8:15am EDT

9:45am EDT

12:30pm EDT

2:00pm EDT

3:30pm EDT

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