The Ends of Smaller Worlds is a collection of short stories set in Indiana. The preface is about the representation of the information age using elements of dirty realism and Gothic fiction.

This thesis examines the forms and functions of self-consciousness in contemporary Gothic fiction. Though self-consciousness is an often-mentioned characteristic of Gothic writing, it has yet to be explored in sufficient depth. In particular, critics have failed to recognise the manner in which the myriad forms of textual and generic self-reflexivity at work contribute to the fiction’s fearful agenda: how self-consciousness in the Gothic is itself Gothicised. This thesis argues that, rather than being an ancillary quirk of generic coherence or an indication of creative exhaustion, self-consciousness has become an integral part of the genre’s terroristic project, a new source and representational mode of terror. In the wake of postmodern and post-structural theory, the genre’s longstanding interest in reading, writing and textuality has been renewed, re-contextualised and redeployed as a key feature of the Gothic ‘effect’. My original contribution to knowledge is a charting of the intersections between the Gothic and this critical perspective on the text. In particular I explore how the Barthesian reorientation of the text is redeployed in Gothic fiction as a source of terror. Rather than pursuing an author-centric division of chapters I have organised the thesis around types of self-conscious commentary that occur throughout the contemporary Gothic. These are: a focus on the process of writing and textual composition; the internalisation and Gothicised representation of critical theory; an acute awareness and meta-commentary on the critical and commercial contexts of Gothic; and intertextuality. Key texts include Stephen King’s Misery (1987), Mark Danielewski’s House of Leaves (2000), Chuck Palahniuk’s Haunted (2005), A.N. Wilson’s A Jealous Ghost (2005), R. M. Berry’s Frank (2005) and Peter Ackroyd’s The Casebook of Victor Frankenstein (2008). This selection of texts is representative of a varied but coherent inward turn in the Gothic fiction of recent decades. It is, however, by no means exhaustive and supplementary evidence will be provided from additional texts. Equally, it is important to contextualise this contemporary turn in relation to an established vein of self-consciousness in the Gothic, present since its inception. As such, my approach is firstly to trace a lineage of reflexivity and to draw upon that tradition in demonstrating how contemporary Gothic writers have honed this technique to a uniquely terrifying purpose.

Die Schwarze Szene oder Gothic-Kultur bezeichnet eine Jugend- und Musikkultur-Szene, deren Wurzeln in die 1980er Jahre zu­rückreichen. Neben Einflüssen von Independent und Dark Wave sind auch frühere jugendkulturelle Strömungen wie Punk, New Wave, New Romantic, Gothic u.a. festzustellen, wobei durch die Überlagerungen verschiedener Szenen und Musikstile und mehr­fache Generationswechsel eine subkulturelle Einordnung zuneh­mend schwierig wird. Dazu trägt auch bei, dass Indivi­dualität und Individualitätsausdruck für die Mitglieder der Szene von besonde­rer Bedeutung sind. Während die musikalische Eindeutigkeit der Szene inzwischen an Bedeutung verliert, gibt es doch einen Kern an Lebenseinstellungen und Werthaltungen sowie auf stilistischer Ebene einen Kanon an geteilten Symbolen, unter denen die Farbe Schwarz als überdeterminiertes Einheits­symbol herausragt, das gleichwohl sehr unterschiedlich mit Bedeutungen aufgefüllt sein kann. In dieser Ausgabe von Medienwelten werden zwei Studien vorgestellt, die sich dem Thema Gothics aus unter­schied­lichen Perspektiven nähern und damit dazu beitragen, ein viel­schichtigeres Bild der Selbst- und Fremdwahrnehmung der Schwarzen Szene zu zeichnen. Dabei geht es sowohl um mediale Berichterstattung als auch um Fantum und Aspekte der Identitäts­ent­wicklung in der Adoleszenz.

This thesis is concerned with the importance of the gaze in fin-de-siecle Gothic. One of the ways in which the importance of the gaze manifests itself is in the central role of the onlooker like Enfield, Utterson or Lanyon in Robert Louis Stevenson's Stange case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886), Prendick In H.G. Well's Island of Dr Moreau (1896), or Harker in Bram Stoker's Dracula (1897). As their appelation suggests, Wells's Beast Men confound the distinction between the human and the animal, which is also the case with 'Beast Men' like Hyde and Dracula. A central concern of the thisis is the perceptual drama that is involved in looking at the spectacle of the monstrous body, for excample, as the onlooker struggles to get to grips with the challenge to representation posed by these 'Beast Men'.

Adolescence – that tricky time when children have not yet reached adulthood – is a time of much disturbance, change and growth. Faced with a body that changes, stretches and grows in all directions, as does the mind, the adolescent finds that they are not who they once were, and that their concerns are not what they once were. According to David Punter, the nature of adolescence is integral to Gothic writing; for him, adolescence can be seen as a time when there is a fantasised inversion of boundaries: ‘where what is inside finds itself outside (acne, menstrual blood, rage) and what we think should be visibly outside (heroic dreams, attractiveness, sexual organs) remain resolutely inside and hidden’ (Punter 1998, 6). However, this is to ‘Gothicise’ adolescents - to view adolescents themselves as Gothic beings – rather than to understand what the true nature of their concerns and fears really are. This thesis intends to investigate, therefore, those fears and concerns as they are represented through the medium of Gothic texts written for adolescents. I propose to examine what happens to the Gothic mode in the gap between young children’s literature and adult fiction and will look at, through the Gothic lens, Young Adult literature which explores the teenager's relationships with issues such as sex, death and autonomy. As the Gothic is ‘erotic at root’ (Punter 1996, 191) and often focused on the centrality of sexuality, I explore the nature of ‘changing bodies’ and consider the adolescent’s burgeoning sexuality and desire for romantic relationships; however, the Gothic is not just about sex, and I also examine adolescent engagement with the concept of death, before finally going on to study issues of adolescent power and autonomy.

In both Outer Dark and Child of God, McCarthy does a masterful job of blending the elements of Appalachian Gothic to present a novel that is darkly suspenseful and grimly thought-provoking. Outer Dark focuses on the complex incestuous relationship between a brother and sister and their interaction with others. The novel follows the two on a journey through the wilderness where they must cope with the unknown qualities of that wilderness, as well as the guilt stemming from their own behaviors. In Child of God, McCarthy explores the grotesque nature of a life lived in isolation and poverty in the mountains. This novel focuses more on an individual descent into the gruesome depths that illustrate the main character’s depravity. In these two novels McCarthy examines the darker side of life in Appalachia, and forces readers to question the purpose and meaning for the characters’ lives and actions.

According to Michael Sean Bolton, the posthuman Gothic involves a fear of internal monsters that won't destroy humanity apocalyptically, but will instead redefine what it means to be human overall. These internal monsters reflect societal anxieties about the "other" gaining power and overtaking the current groups in power. The posthuman Gothic shows psychological horrors and transformations. Traditionally this genre has been used to theorize postmodern media and literary work by focusing on cyborgs and transhumanist medical advancements. However, the internal and psychological nature of posthumanism is fascinating and can more clearly manifest in a different Gothic setting, 1800s American Gothic Fiction. This subgenre of the Gothic melds well with the posthuman Gothic because unlike the Victorian Gothic, its supernatural entities are not literal; they are often figurative and symbolic, appearing through hallucinations. In this historical context, one can examine the dynamic in which the "human" is determined by a rational humanism that bases its human model on Western, white masculinity. Therefore, the other is clearly gendered and racialized. Margrit Shildrick offers an interesting analysis of the way women fit into this construction of the other because of their uncanniness and Gothic monstrosity. Three works of American Gothic fiction--George Lippard's The Quaker City, Edgar Allen Poe's "Ligeia," and Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper" portray these gendered power dynamics present within the posthuman Gothic when applied to the American Gothic; the female characters are either forced by patriarchy into becoming monstrous, or they were never fully human in the first place.

In this essay, the author analyzes the Gothic of Christina Rossetti in such poems as A Coast Nightmare, Shut Out, but also the well-known Goblin Market and the Prince's Progress. Interested in what the imagery of these poems convey, and intent on declaring Rossetti as a prominent example of Gothic poets, the author makes a strong case for the including of Rossetti among the great Gothics.

<p>The creatures known as vampires have inspired authors for several hundred years. These beings are stereotypically described as belonging to a “nocturnal species” who live “in shadows” and drink “our lives in secrecy” (Auerbach 1). However, they have by now appeared so often in literary works, and in so many different shapes and sizes, that they are much too nuanced to be called ‘stereotypes.’</p><p>This essay will make a historical comparison between two fictional vampires, one hundred years apart, in order to show that a change has taken place when it comes to how vampires as fictional characters have been portrayed in terms of their appearance, their psychology, and their roles in society. The first novel chosen is, for obvious reasons, Bram Stoker’s Dracula. It was written at the turn of the nineteenth century by a male author and is probably the first novel that comes into mind when the word vampire is mentioned. The second novel, The Vampire Lestat, was written almost a century later, in 1986, by a female author, who, to readers of vampire fiction, is a worthy successor of Stoker. Her name is Anne Rice, best known for her debut novel Interview with the Vampire (1976).</p><p>The two novels are naturally chosen because of their similarities, but perhaps even more so because of their differences. Dracula is a typically Victorian Gothic novel, which is set in the remote mountains of Transylvania, and in the modern capital London, contemporary to when the novel was published. It is written in epistolary form but never allows for the main character, Count Dracula, to defend or explain himself and his actions in a first-person narrative.</p><p>The Vampire Lestat, on the other hand, is a Neo-Gothic novel that focus less on conventional Gothic elements, for example gloomy settings, and more on the psychological aspects of what it is like to actually be a vampire. Unlike Dracula, it is the main character’s fictional autobiography in which he recalls his life in France, his transformation into a vampire, and his current career in the United States as a famous rock star. Nina Auerbach calls it “a series of temporal regressions in which Lestat . . . embarks on a backward quest out of the knowable world” (172).</p><p>Both novels used in this analysis are thus part of the Gothic genre, one being a Victorian Gothic and the other Neo-Gothic, but there are significant differences between the two. I will investigate how these differences reveal themselves when it comes to setting and plot. However, the novels are similar in that they present two male vampires who belong to the nobility and have lived on through the centuries. The vampires both want to be where the power is, which means, in the case of Stoker’s Dracula, that he tries to conquer nineteenth-century London and seduce a young intelligent woman named Mina. Lestat, on the other hand, wants to become a famous twentieth-century rock star in the United States and simply have a good time while being a vampire (Auerbach 6).</p><p>The aim of this essay is to investigate what is typical of the genres that the two novels belong to and determine what has changed in the vampires’ physical appearance, their manners and their ability to adapt to modern society. In the first section of the essay I will give a description of the typical elements of the Gothic and the Neo-Gothic genres and then compare them in order to make a generic description of the two novels, Dracula and The Vampire Lestat. Vampire fiction will be treated as a sub-genre to the Gothic genre. In the succeeding two sections I will make comparative analyses of the two novels, particularly of the main characters, in order to describe the similarities and differences between the two and study how the vampire character has changed during the last century. Much of the discussion, especially regarding Dracula, will be based on Cesare Lombroso’s concept of the ‘criminal man,’ and various modern scholars’ opinion that the vampire is seen as an outcast and a threat to society.</p>

Republicanism and the American Gothic is a comparative study of British and American literature and culture in the 1790s and 1950s. As the title indicates, this thesis explores the republican tradition of the British Enlightenment and the effect of its translation and migration to the American colonies. Specifically, it examines in detail the transatlantic influence of seventeenth and eighteenth century libertarian and anti-authoritarian thought on British and American Revolutionary culture. It argues that whether radical or orthodox, Whig or Tory, the quarrel surrounding the movement from subject to citizen nourishes Gothic aesthetics on both sides of the Atlantic. In America, particularly, the discourse of republicanism articulates not only the nation’s revolutionary goals, but defines national consciousness. This thesis further argues that republicanism is also a panic-ridden ideology, animated by fears of corruption, degeneration, and tyranny, and therefore supplies fertile ground for the development of a Gothic tradition in America. This dissertation then examines the continuing relevance of republican values and discourse in Cold War America. It suggests that the aesthetic, moral, and political imperatives that characterized republicanism in the late eighteenth century re-emerge in the post-war era as an antidote to the contemporary crisis in liberal subjectivity. In the Cold War, Gothic tales featuring doubles, vampires, and conspirators, not only dramatize contemporary fears of communism, conformity, and the rise of mass culture, but also engage with the nation’s historical fears of deception, corruption, degeneration, and tyranny. While grounded in the Gothic novel, this thesis is informed by the theory of republicanism that arose in the post-war years and which came to challenge many of the long held views of American revolutionary history. This thesis attempts to explore the influence of this historical approach on Cold War discourse generally, and on Gothic fiction specifically.