This book revives and revitalises the literary Gothic in the hands of contemporary women writers. It makes a scholarly, lively and convincing case that the Gothic makes horror respectable, and establishes contemporary women’s Gothic fictions in and against traditional Gothic. The book provides new, engaging perspectives on established contemporary women Gothic writers, with a particular focus on Angela Carter, Margaret Atwood and Toni Morrison. It explores how the Gothic is malleable in their hands and is used to demythologise oppressions based on difference in gender and ethnicity. The study presents new Gothic work and new nuances, critiques of dangerous complacency and radical questionings of what is safe and conformist in works as diverse as
Twilight (Stephenie Meyer) and
A Girl Walks Home Alone (Ana Lily Amirpur), as well as by Anne Rice and Poppy Brite. It also introduces and critically explores postcolonial, vampire and neohistorical Gothic and women’s ghost stories.
Table of Content
1.Introduction.- 2.Angela Carter: Living in Gothic Times.- 3.Margaret Atwood and Canadian Women’s Gothic: Spite, Lies, Split Selves and Self Deception.- 4.Cultural Haunting: Toni Morrison and Tananarive Due.- 5.Postcolonial and Cultural Haunting Revenants: Letting the ‘Right’ Ones In.- 6.Testing the Fabric of Bluebeard’s Castle: Postcolonial Reconfigurations, Demythologizing, Re-Mythologizing and Shape-shifting.- 7.Vampire Bites.- 8.Vampire Kisses.- 9.Ghostings and Hauntings: Splintering the Fabric of Domestic Gothic with Horror Houses, Stately Homes, Ghosts Behind Walls, Playroom Deaths, Women in Black, Little Strangers.- 10.Reviving, Revisiting and Mainstreaming Gothic
About the author
Gina Wisker is Head of Learning and Teaching and Professor of Higher Education and Contemporary Literature, University of Brighton, UK. She teaches MA and BA in literature and supervises postgraduate students. Gina is an Oxford Centre for Staff and Learning development consultant. She has lived in Singapore, Cyprus and Malta and now runs workshops worldwide – in the Far East, Australasia, the USA, Sweden and South Africa – particularly on supervising postgraduates and writing for academic publication. She is the author of a number of books, chapters and articles including
Getting Published,
The Good Supervisor,
Postgraduate Research Handbook and
Horror Fiction. She also writes and publishes poetry and short stories, and is co-editor of SEDA journal
Innovations in Education and Teaching International, online horror journal
Dissections and poetry e-zine
Spokes. Gina peer reviews for several literature and higher education journals andis on the advisory board for
FEMSPEC and the
Atlantic Literary Review. She lives in Cambridge with her two sons and small dog.
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