The Gothic

Simon Bacon

What is the Gothic?

From ghosts to vampires, from ruined castles to steampunk fashion, the Gothic is a term that evokes all things strange, haunted and sinister.

This volume offers a new look at the world of the Gothic, from its origins in the eighteenth century to its reemergence today. Each short essay is dedicated to a single text – a novel, a film, a comic book series, a festival – that serves as a lens to explore the genre. Original readings of classics like The Mysteries of Udolpho (Ann Radcliffe) and Picnic at Hanging Rock (Joan Lindsay) are combined with unique insights into contemporary examples like the music of Mexican rock band Caifanes, the novels Annihilation (Jeff VanderMeer), Goth (Otsuichi) and The Paying Guests (Sarah Waters), and the films Crimson Peak (Guillermo del Toro) and Ex Machina (Alex Garland).

Together the essays provide innovative ways of understanding key texts in terms of their Gothic elements. Invaluable for students, teachers and fans alike, the book’s accessible style allows for an engaging look at the spectral and uncanny nature of the Gothic.

Cover

Contents

Introduction (Simon Bacon)

What is the Gothic?

The Uncanny

Many Gothics

Part I: Ideologies, Imperialism, and the Gothic

Arthur Machen’s The Three Impostors (1895) – Victorian Gothic (Justin Sausman)

Richard Marsh’s The Joss: A Reversion (1901) – Imperial Gothic (Johan Höglund)

Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea (1966) – Postcolonial Gothic (Tabish Khair)

Bill Condon’s Gods and Monsters (1998) – War Gothic (Steffen Hantke)

Charles Brockden Brown’s Wieland; or The Transformation (1798) – Transatlantic Gothic (James Peacock)

Part II: America and the Gothic

Robert Bloch’s American Gothic (1974) – American Gothic (Agnieszka Soltysik Monnet)

Clarence John Laughlin’s Ghosts Along the Mississippi (1948) – Southern Gothic (Timothy Jones)

Brandon Massey’s Dark Corner (2004) – African American Gothic (Maisha L. Wester)

Ron Honthaner’s The House on Skull Mountain (1974) – Zombie Gothic (Sarah Juliet Lauro)

Part III: Gothic Territories

Caifanes (1987–Present) – Mexican Gothic (Enrique Ajuria Ibarra and Luis Daniel Martínez Álvarez)

Joan Lindsay’s Picnic at Hanging Rock (1967/1975) – Australian Gothic (Ashleigh Prosser)

Otsuichi’s Goth (2002) – Japanese Gothic (Katarzyna Ancuta)

Whitby Goth Weekend (1994–Present) – Gothic Subcultures (Claire Nally)

Aideen Barry’s Possession (2011) – Suburban/Domestic Gothic (Tracy Fahey)

Part IV: Gender, Sexuality, and the Gothic

Matthew Lewis’s The Monk (1796) – Queer Gothic (Max Fincher)

Ann Radcliffe’s The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794) – Female Gothic (Kathleen Hudson)

Sarah Waters’s The Paying Guests (2014) – Postfeminist Gothic (Gina Wisker)

A. S. Byatt’s ‘The Dried Witch’ (1987) – Postmodern Gothic (Maria Beville)

Part V: Media and Mediums of the Gothic

Horace Walpole’s Strawberry Hill House (1749) – Architectural Gothic (Peter N. Lindfield)

Grant Morrison, Dave McKean, and Gaspar Saladino’s Arkham Asylum (1989) – Gothic Comics (Julia Round)

Guillermo del Toro’s Crimson Peak (2015) – Gothic Film (Xavier Aldana Reyes)

Tale of Tales’s The Path (2009) – Gaming and the Gothic (Emily Flynn-Jones)

Cormac McCarthy’s The Road (2006) – Food Gothic (Lorna Piatti-Farnell)

Part VI: Gothic Futures

Max Brooks’s World War Z (2006) – Neoliberal Gothic (Linnie Blake)

China Miéville’s Perdido Street Station (2000) – Gothic Literary Science Fiction (Sara Wasson)

Jeff VanderMeer’s Annihilation (2014) – Gothic and the New Weird (Jeffrey Andrew Weinstock)

Koji Suzuki’s Edge (2012) – Quantum Gothic (Elana Gomel)

Alex Garland’s Ex Machina (2015) – Vampire Gothic (Simon Bacon)

Bibliography

Notes on Contributors

Index

Pages:

X, 264

Year:

2018

ISBN (PAPERBACK):

9781787072688 (Active)

ISBN (EPUB):

9781787072701 (Active)

ISBN (PDF):

9781787072695 (Active)

DOI:

10.3726/b13432

Language:

English

Keywords:

Cultural Studies, film studies, Media studies, literary studies, Gothic Studies

Published:

Oxford, Bern, Berlin, Bruxelles, New York, Wien, 2018. X, 264 pp., 45 coloured ill., 1 b/w ill.

Simon Bacon has published many articles on vampires, zombies and monsters in popular culture and science fiction and has co-edited books on various subjects, including Undead Memory: Vampires and Human Memory in Popular Culture (2014), Little Horrors: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Anomalous Children and the Construction of Monstrosity (2016) and To Boldly Go: Gender and Identity in the Star Trek Franchise (2017). His first monograph, Becoming Vampire: Difference and the Vampire in Popular Culture, came out in 2016. He is currently working on his second book, The Undead Self: Troubled and Troubling Identities in Screen Adaptations of Bram Stoker’s ‘Dracula’.

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The Gothic

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