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Derek Johnston

@drdjohnston.bsky.social

1.2K followers 886 following 438 posts

Media lecturer: UK TV history, telefantasy, historical dramas. At Queen’s University Belfast.

Posts Replies Media

Derek Johnston @drdjohnston.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Partial garden grape harvest … Now, what to do with them! Eat some and make some grape jelly, probably.

A large metal bowl, about 30cm across, filled with bunches of small green grapes.

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Derek Johnston @drdjohnston.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

This year all three of our willow trees died. Today, I was clearing away around the base of one that had just rotted away and found this. Obviously, we’re not being cursed, this is just some scented herb bag that somehow got to the base of the trees. Behind the greenhouse. In the back garden…

A small, rough bag of a green fabric tied with a cord, covered in earth. A small mushroom grows out of the fabric.

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Derek Johnston @drdjohnston.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

Me: I shouldn’t buy any more games; I don’t have a group, don’t have time to read them, don’t have book space. Also me: @handiworkgames.bsky.social @malcolmcraig.bsky.social

Copies of the Cold City / Hot War 2nd edition tabletop RPG rule books, with the Reports One to Six supplement.

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Derek Johnston @drdjohnston.bsky.social · 15/08/2026

Lifted potatoes from the veg beds. The ones where we had not planted potatoes.

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Derek Johnston @drdjohnston.bsky.social · 04/01/2026

Went for a walk in the snow this morning. In some places mine were the first footprints since snowfall.

A snow-covered field, with a tall ariel or pylon in the distance, the sun sitting at the top of the pylon.

A view across Belfast Lough to where white clouds hug the tops of the snow-capped hills. Grey clouds fill the top of the picture, reaching down.

A view from a woodland path in the snow, looking out at the thin woodland at a still leaf-topped tree in the centre frame. Fallen trees lie in the foreground, following the gentle upward curve of the hill.

A woodland in snow, two pathways splitting off to left and right, trees mostly bare of leaves.

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Derek Johnston @drdjohnston.bsky.social · 12/12/2025

I'm not sure why it's flashing like that, but the image contains the CFP for the edited collection @dianearodgers.bsky.social and I are putting together on Folk Horror on Television. We're looking for a wide range of texts, contexts, and academic approaches. Proposals by 15 January.

Folk Horror on Television: Call for Proposals for an Edited Collection
Editors: Derek Johnston and Diane A. Rodgers
Since the first academic conference on the subject in 2014 to the present day, there has been a blossoming interest in the genre or mode of folk horror. There has been a particular boom in academic publishing on the subject in the past few years, including edited collections and monographs. However, this work has tended to focus on folk horror in film and literature, despite there being many televisual texts which can be seen as part of or closely related to the genre. The shared importance of ideas of identity of region and nation form a particular connection between television and folk horror.
This collection would seek to address some of this gap. Authors are encouraged to engage with examples from a range of national and transnational contexts. Contributors are also urged to consider the breadth of different definitions of and approaches to folk horror, taking into account the concept of genres as cultural categories, defined by their usage rather than by particular textual characteristics. This can lead to a consideration not just of a wider selection of texts, but also to look beyond the text to consider what different audiences may be doing by claiming particular productions as 'folk horror'. We use here the broadest understanding of folk horror as that which also embraces the ‘wyrd’: texts which may be considered uncanny or unsettling rather than necessarily ‘horrific’. We are also keen to include a wide range of approaches to folk horror on television, whether textual studies, histories, fan studies, folkloristics, or other suitable approaches to broaden and deepen our understanding of the connections between folk horror and television.

We have strong interest from Bloomsbury’s Spectres, Hauntings and Horrors series. Proposals of 500 words to derek.johnston@qub.ac.uk AND d.rodgers@shu.ac.uk. Closing date for proposals is 15 January 2026.

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Derek Johnston @drdjohnston.bsky.social · 22/05/2025

Finally getting to look at this beauty from Toby Hadoke @tobyhadoke.bsky.social and surprised (and delighted!) to see some of my work listed in the sources! Really looking forward to dig into this and learn more about this classic!

The cover of a hardback book with the title “The Quatermass Experiment”.

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Derek Johnston @drdjohnston.bsky.social · 05/04/2025

Look what wondrous horror has arrived!

An open cardboard mailing box shows, nestled in brown packing paper, the cover of the book “Nigel Kneale and Horror”. The cover is in blue and grey tones, a broad band displaying the title, a circle showing the Hidden Horror Histories series title, and a greyscale image showing a hovering, three-legged, three-armed insectile Martian from “Quatermass and the Pit”.

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Derek Johnston @drdjohnston.bsky.social · 15/03/2025

This seemed like an appropriate street for @dianearodgers.bsky.social and myself to find ourselves walking down following our folk horror panel @offscreenff.bsky.social @bobfischer.bsky.social

A blue bilingual street name sign with white text reading “Rue de Bois Sauvage / Wildewoud Straat”

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