Dr Paulina Palmer has now retired from a senior lectureship in English at Warwick University, where she helped establish the Women's Studies MA, she also lectured for the MA in Gender and Sexuality at Birkbeck, London University. Dr Palmer's publications include Contemporary Women's Fiction: Narrative Practice and Feminist Theory; Contemporary Lesbian Writing: Dreams, Desire, Difference; and Lesbian Gothic: Transgressive Fictions. http://www.paulinapalmer.org.uk

The Queer Uncanny: New Perspectives on the Gothic investigates the roles played by the concept of the uncanny, as defined by Sigmund Freud and other theorists, in the representation of lesbian and male gay sexualities and transgender in a selection of contemporary British, American and Caribbean fiction published 1980-2007. Novels by Christopher Bram, Philip Hensher, Alan Hollingurst, Randall Kenan, Shani Mootoo, Sarah Schulman, Ali Smith, Sarah Waters, Jeanette Winterson and other writers receive analysis in the context of queer theory and gothic critical writing. Topics discussed include: secrets and their disclosure, queer spectrality, the homely/ unhomely house, the grotesque, lesbian social invisibility, transgender doubles, and the intersection between sexuality and race.