Queering Contemporary Gothic Narrative 1970-2012

This book explores the development of queer Gothic fiction, contextualizing it with reference to representations of queer sexualities and genders in eighteenth and nineteenth-century Gothic, as well as the sexual-political perspectives generated by the 1970s lesbian and gay liberation movements and the development of queer theory in the 1990s. The book examines the roles that Gothic motifs and narrative strategies play in depicting aspects of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual and intersex experience in contemporary Gothic fiction. Gothic motifs discussed include spectrality, the haunted house, the vampire, doppelganger and monster. Regional Gothic and the contribution that Gothic tropes make to queer historical fiction and historiography receive attention, as does the AIDS narrative. Female Gothic and feminist perspectives are also explored. Writers discussed include Peter Ackroyd, Vincent Brome, Jim Grimsley, Alan Hollinghurst, Randall Kenan, Meg Kingston, Michelle Paver, Susan Swan, Louise Tondeur, Sarah Waters, Kathleen Winter and Jeanette Winterson.

Discusses the way in which Gothic motifs and narrative strategies act as a vehicle for representing and examining queer sexuality and different forms of transgender and transsexuality in contemporary queer theory and fiction Examines contemporary queer Gothic fiction in the context of queer and postmodern theory Analyses the roles that spectrality, the haunted house narrative, the vampire, the doppelganger, the monster, uncanny landscapes and cityscapes and other Gothic motifs play in queer fiction Introduces reference to different kinds of contemporary queer fiction, including the ghost story, haunted house narrative, vampire narrative, the AIDS novel, and queer historical fiction and historiography

Auteur

After retiring from a senior lectureship at Warwick University, Dr Palmer taught for the MA in Gender and Sexuality at Birkbeck, London University. Her publications include Contemporary Women's Fiction: Narrative Practice and Feminist Theory; Contemporary Lesbian Writing: Dreams, Desire, Difference ; Lesbian Gothic: Transgressive Fictions; The Queer Uncanny: New Perspectives on the Gothic. She teaches at City Lit College, London.

Contenu

1. Introduction: Queering Contemporary Gothic.- 2. Ghosts and Haunted Houses.- 3. Uncanny Others: Vampires and Doubles.- 4. Tracking the Monster.- 5. Regional Gothic: Uncanny Cites and Rural Sites.- Conclusion