Die vorliegende Studie beschäftigt sich mit dem Phänomen der zeitgenössischen kanadischen Geistergeschichten. Ausgangspunkt ist die außergewöhnlich hohe Anzahl an veröffentlichten Geistergeschichten, die es um bzw. seit Anfang der Jahrtausendwende gab. Die Besonderheit liegt darin, das Kanada gemäß seines Selbstverständnisses ein „matter-of-fact-country“ ist, das im Gegensatz zu seinem südlichen Nachbarn, den USA, weder Gründungsmythen noch eine reichhaltige Tradition an Schauerliteratur vorweisen kann. Dieses Phänomen wird unter einer ästhetisch-ontologischen Perspektive untersucht. Mithilfe romantischer Philosophie (v.a. Friedrich J. W. Schelling), aber auch zeitgenössischen philosophischen Ansätzen sowie traditionellen Mythen kann erklärt werden, dass die Aufklärung und der damit einhergehenden rationalen rationalen Weltsicht, die nicht zuletzt die Kolonialgeschichte bestimmte, in sich begrenzt ist – schließlich kreiert die Aufklärung selbst einen neuen Mythos: nämlich den von ihrer Allmacht. In dieser Arbeit wird dargelegt, dass es ein menschliches Bestreben ist die Welt eben nicht nur rational und logisch zu betrachten. In diesem Sinne verstehen sich, so die These, die Geistergeschichten als ein längst überfälliges Gegenspiel zum rationalistischen Selbstverständnis der kanadischen Kultur. In diesem Zusammenhang setzt sich die Arbeit mit theoretischen Ansätzen wie der Schauerliteratur und des Magischen Realismus kritisch auseinander und schlägt vor eine pantheistische Lesart zu entwickeln (pantheistisch, da in den Geschichten alle übersinnlichen Kräfte der Welt immanent sind). Diese Studie zeigt, dass die Geister andere Semantiken aufweisen als bei der konventionellen Schauerliteratur: Wo in klassischer Schauerliteratur die Geister eine Bedrohung darstellen, werden sie in den zeitgenössischen kanadischen Geistergeschichten als der Erde zugehörig aufgefasst. Es handelt sich also um eine lebensbejahende Form der Einschreibung von Magie in die (Lebens-)Welt, die zugleich dem menschlichen Bedürfnis nachkommt die Welt über Mythen – und keine rationale Sicht – zu erklären. Unter Betrachtung dieser Prämissen werden folgende Geistergeschichten untersucht: Tomson Highways „Kiss of the Fur Queen“ (1998), Eden Robinsons „Monkey Beach“ (2000), Kenneth J. Harveys „The Town that Forgot How to Breathe“ (2004), Joseph Boydens „Three Day Road“ (2005) und David Chariandys „Soucouyant“ (2007).

<p>This dissertation explores the ways in which British popular novels of the eighteenth century functioned as commodities. "Novel Addiction", the title of this dissertation has a double meaning: Addiction was a new conceptual framework developed during the eighteenth century in order to manage the increasing anxiety brought upon the culture of consumption, and the novel, one of the most popular commodities of the same period, was addictive. Both as successful commodities and efficient cultural agents, popular novels that were categorized as the sentimental or the gothic participated in the process of creating and disseminating models of addiction that warranted perpetual discipline. However, this discipline does not aim at preventing or eliminating addiction. It rather manages addiction as "habit" in a way that guarantees proliferation of the market economy. By employing the framework of addiction, I intend to reconfigure the role of the novel in the construction of individual and collective models of consumption-oriented subjectivity. </p><p>The first chapter begins with Eliza Haywood's Present for Women Addicted to Drinking where the author proposes novel-reading as the best cure for alcohol addiction, which allows me to explore a parallel between the phenomenon called the "gin craze" and the proliferation of print commodities. The second and third chapter discuss the sentimental novel and the gothic novel respectively focusing on the characteristics of each genre that make them addictive. The fourth and final chapter discusses Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey and Sense and Sensibility, which address and attempt to manage "novel addiction," a problem posed by the popular novels of her contemporaries.</p> / Dissertation

<p>This dissertation is the first architectural history devoted to Beverley Minster, a large and ambitious Gothic church located in the East Riding of Yorkshire. Beverley is one of the most important medieval buildings in England, but it has been almost entirely ignored in the literature. The church is composed of three parts: choir and transepts (c. 1225-1260), nave (c. 1308-c. 1370), and west façade (c. 1380-1420). </p><p>The thesis begins with a description of the destroyed buildings that occupied the site during the Saxon and Romanesque periods. The remainder of the dissertation focuses on the work completed at the Minster during the fourteenth century, in the so-called Decorated style. First, the nave is analyzed and its construction is assigned to six campaigns between the years c. 1308-c. 1370. Much discussion is devoted to the "historicism" of the nave's conservative design, which is a subtly modernized version of the east end that preceded it. Contemporary documents also permit discussion of the financial contributions of the laity, canons, and municipal leaders who paid for the nave to be built. </p><p>Finally, a detailed analysis is offered for the furnishings made at Beverley between 1292 and c. 1340: the reredos (high altar screen), sedilia (seating for priests), and the destroyed shrine which once contained the relics of St. John of Beverley. Like the nave, they are all neglected masterpieces of the Decorated style.</p> / Dissertation

This article seeks to establish the importance of gothic convention and architecture’s role in Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher” and Southworth’s The Hidden Hand. By examining these stories’ dualities this article analyzes Poe and Southworth’s projects behind setting up dual spaces. Specific to Poe, this article follows architecture’s effect on mental health. Specific to Southworth, this article investigates her criticism of binaries and convention and how she uses architecture to shape her analysis.

This thesis explores elements of science fiction in three gothic novels, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Robert Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and Bram Stoker’s Dracula. It begins by explicating the important tropes of science fiction and progresses with a discussion that establishes a connection between three gothic novels and the science fiction genre. This thesis argues that the aforementioned novels express characters’ fear of technology and offer an analysis of human nature that is literarily futuristic. In this view, each of the aforementioned writers uses extreme events in their works to demonstrate that science can contribute to humanity’s understanding of itself. In these works, readers encounter characters who offer commentary on the darker side of the human experience.

Within this thesis I explore what can be achieved when culture is critically assessed through a series of theories that mobilise a spatial imaginary. I place the concepts of atmosphere, connection, site and encounter, and theories of emergence via terms such as movement, practice and embodiment, into tension with a single case study: Goth. Goth is a music based grouping, emerging from Punk, New Romantic, Indie and Glam Rock style and music cultures in the late 1970s, with a significant near-global presence in the popular culture industries and links to several salient media controversies; including the Columbine High School massacre, the murder of Sophie Lancaster, and fears over self-harm and suicide. I specifically draw on the vocabularies from within non-representational geographies of performance, relational materiality, affect and social anxiety to re-work understandings of this collectivity. I question what is involved in the material practices of Goth, explore how the practice and experience of Goth is articulated through specific sites, examine how Goth participates in the production and circulation of cultures of anxiety or (un)popularity; and reconsider the concept of ‘subculture’. To do so, I employ a range of methodologies, from guided walks to photo-diaries, within multi-site field research throughout the UK, Tokyo and New York City. I conclude that Goth and culture more generally can be theorised in a number of ways: it emerges as a performed series of embodied acts; it is co-produced in complex relations with non-humans; it can be thought of as a series of modulating affective atmospheres; it coalesces as a collectivity and circulates through events; and it is co-produced through sites and media events. None of these dominates over or diminishes the other; rather they are co-constitutive and interdependent.

The purpose of this paper is to determine why Mrs. Radcliffe's gothic novels were popular with contemporary readers. Sources include reviews from eighteenth century periodicals, essays of early nineteenth century critics such as William Hazlitt and studies of her work by twentieth century critics. The thesis is organized in four chapters each of which discusses one aspect of her work which particularly pleased her contemporary reviewers and critics: her invention, her attitude toward superstition, her use of poetic justice, and her outlook on nature. These aspects of her work alone did not secure for her the popularity she enjoyed, but, when combined with her ability to create suspense, helped her become one of the most popular writers of her era.

The succeeding chapters of this thesis are concerned with Carson McCullers' method of handling the Gothic. Their purpose is to describe the modern Gothic elements in McCullers' first three novels: The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter (1940), Reflections in a Golden Eye (1941), The Member of the Wedding (1946) and in her novella: The Ballad of the Sad Cafe (1943).

The thesis entitled Sacred space in the era of Gothic thinking, art and architecture deals with a certain specification of the sacred space, the function and meaning of the medieval church, events leading to the beginnings of Gothic art which left its imprint on the general medieval art and whose influence radiates from the 12th century and ends in the 15th century An essential part of the text is dedicated to using the given rules in the sacred space of the castle Karlstein.

Applying basic linguistic theory, a grammatical analysis of Gothic verbs formed with the previously underdescribed quasi-prefix (or preverb) miþ- shows that it forms what could be called an atypical type of applicative, though in two cases it seems instead to mark verbal congruence to an adverbial. Of the possible meanings of the etymologically identical preposition miþ, the comitative seems most salient for the quasi-prefix. An introduced core argument in these constructions do not behave like a typicaltransitive object, as it cannot be passivised, and so is likely rather an extension E (or indirect object) to the core. An underlying transitive object O remains as is, and can be passivised. The construction is only used when E pertains to the topic of the discourse, either an overlapping or a new topic. It is never a background comment, as is attested with peripheral arguments. The dative case of the introduced E seems to be semantically motivated, it being thecombination—comparable to a complex case marking—of the preposition and the quasi-prefix with the dative case that signals the comitative meaning. This construction is formally unrestrained, being applied to intransitive, ambitransitive, and transitive verbs, either with or without vowel gradation. In most cases the introduced E has a human referent, but it can also be a concrete object or an abstract. It cannot be inferred from this investigation whether Gothic allowed more than one applicative construction to be applied to the same verb. It would seem there are indications that this construction might have been a relatively new and developing construction in Gothic. In the verbal template, miþ- occupies the outermost position, in itself an indication of late grammaticalization. The one extant exception to this position could indicate an uncertainty of the translator regarding as to which its proper place was. The two instances with both miþ- and a comitative adverbial suggest—unless an artifact of translation—a possible development from peripheral argument to an atypical E-introducing applicative via verbal congruence.