Modern Gothic culture alternately fascinates, horrifies, or bewilders many of us. We cringe at pictures of Marilyn Manson, cheer for Buffy in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and try not to stare at the pierced and tattooed teens we pass on the streets. But what is it about this dark and morbidly morose aesthetic that fascinates us today? In Contemporary Gothic, Catherine Spooner probes the reasons behind the prevalence of the Gothic in popular culture and how it has inspired innovative new work in film, literature, music, and art.
Gothic Studies has become a significant and popular element in the English degree curriculum and a rapidly expanding international academic field. Teaching the Gothic provides a clear and accessible account of how scholarship on the Gothic has influenced the way in which the Gothic is taught. The book examines a range of topics including Gothic criticism, Theory, Romantic Gothic, Victorian Gothic, Postmodern Gothic, Female Gothic, Gothic Sexualities, Gothic Film, Imperial Gothic, Postcolonial Gothic and Postgraduate developments. This book is an essential guide for teachers and scholars of the Gothic.
Filmmakers have long been drawn to the Gothic with its eerie settings and promise of horror lurking beneath the surface. Moreover, the Gothic allows filmmakers to hold a mirror up to their own age and reveal society's deepest fears. Franco Zeffirelli's Jane Eyre, Francis Ford Coppola's Bram Stoker's Dracula, and Kenneth Branagh's Hamlet are just a few examples of film adaptations of literary Gothic texts. In this ground-breaking study, Lisa Hopkins explores how the Gothic has been deployed in these and other contemporary films and comes to some surprising conclusions.
Gothic novels tell terrifying stories of patriarchal societies that thrive on the oppression or even outright sacrifice of women and others. Donna Heiland's Gothic and Gender offers a historically informed theoretical introduction to key gothic narratives from a feminist perspective. The book concentrates primarily on fiction from the 1760s through the 1840s.
Here is a wonderful book that both inspires and educates. A huge volume covering the Gothic movement in art from the 12th century to the Renaissance, it focuses largely on the development of Gothic architecture, resplendent in well-placed illustrations and photographs that evoke the grandeur of the period. Smaller sections follow on sculpture, painting, stained glass, and gold work.
