I have in mind a particular conception of the Gothic as bearing upon that which persists in being despite our insistence that it can’t be (hence the centrality of the ghost or revenant in the tradition). One reason I’ve ended up working outside academia—and I say this with the utmost respect for everyone in this room, even those who agree with me—is that I have, since a young age, been convinced that much which institutions of higher learning officially tell us cannot be is—or at the very least, may be. It seems to me that the real world is “wild at heart and weird on top,” to quote David Lynch, and that objects and texts outwardly identifiable as “Gothic” exist primarily to make us aware of this fact.