Gothicka : vampire heroes, human gods, and the new supernatural / Victoria Nelson.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Nelson, Victoria.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Goth culture (Subculture)--History and criticism.

Goth culture (Subculture).

Gothic fiction (Literary genre)--History and criticism.

Gothic fiction (Literary genre).

Gothic revival (Literature)--History and criticism.

Gothic revival (Literature).

Horror comic books, strips, etc--History and criticism.

Horror comic books, strips, etc.

Horror films--History and criticism.

Horror films.

Horror tales--History and criticism.

Horror tales.

Spirituality in literature.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (350 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 2012.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

The Gothic, Romanticism's gritty older sibling, has flourished in myriad permutations since the eighteenth century. In Gothicka, Victoria Nelson identifies the revolutionary turn it has taken in the twenty-first. Today's Gothic has fashioned its monsters into heroes and its devils into angels. It is actively reviving supernaturalism in popular culture, not as an evil dimension divorced from ordinary human existence but as part of our daily lives. To explain this millennial shift away from the traditionally dark Protestant post-Enlightenment Gothic, Nelson studies the complex arena of contemporary Gothic subgenres that take the form of novels, films, and graphic novels. She considers the work of Dan Brown and Stephenie Meyer, graphic novelists Mike Mignola and Garth Ennis, Christian writer William P. Young (author of The Shack), and filmmaker Guillermo del Toro. She considers twentieth-century Gothic masters H. P. Lovecraft, Anne Rice, and Stephen King in light of both their immediate ancestors in the eighteenth century and the original Gothic-the late medieval period from which Horace Walpole and his successors drew their inspiration. Fictions such as the Twilight and Left Behind series do more than follow the conventions of the classic Gothic novel. They are radically reviving and reinventing the transcendental worldview that informed the West's premodern era. As Jesus becomes mortal in The Da Vinci Code and the child Ofelia becomes a goddess in Pan's Labyrinth, Nelson argues that this unprecedented mainstreaming of a spiritually driven supernaturalism is a harbinger of what a post-Christian religion in America might look like.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Preface

One. White Dog, the Pequel

Two. Faux Catholic

Three. Gothick Gods

Four. Decommissioning Satan

Five. Gothick Romance

Six. The Bright God Beckons

Seven. Postapocalyptic Gothick

Eight. The Gothick Theater of Halloween

Nine. The Ten Rules of Sitges

Ten. Cathedral Head

Eleven. The New Christian Gothick

Twelve. Epilogue

Notes

Acknowledgments

Index

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780674065406

0674065409

9780674069602

0674069609

OCLC:

794003978