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Showing 1 - 20 of 22 items
By James Machin. 2018
This book is the first study of how weird fiction emerged from Victorian supernatural…
literature abandoning the more conventional Gothic horrors of the past for the contemporary weird tale It investigates the careers and fiction of a range of the British writers who inspired H P Lovecraft such as Arthur Machen M P Shiel and John Buchan to shed light on the tensions between literary and genre fiction that continue to this day Weird Fiction in Britain 1880 1939 focuses on the key literary and cultural contexts of weird fiction of the period including Decadence paganism and the occult and discusses how these later impacted on the seminal American pulp magazine Weird Tales This ground-breaking book will appeal to scholars of weird horror and Gothic fiction genre studies Decadence popular fiction the occult and Fin-de-Si cle cultural historyBy Jeffrey Weinstock. 2018
With well over one-hundred episodes, the podcast Welcome to Night Vale has spawned several international live tours, two novels set…
in the Night Vale universe, and an extensive volume of fan fiction and commentary. However, despite its immense popularity, Welcome to Night Vale has received almost no academic scrutiny. This edited collection of scholarly essays—the very first of its kind on a podcast—attempts to redress this lack of attention to Night Vale by bringing together an international group of scholars from different disciplines to consider the program’s form, themes, politics, and fanbase. After a thorough introduction by the volume’s editor, Jeffrey Andrew Weinstock, the eight contributors not only offer close analysis of Night Vale, but use the program as the impetus for broader explorations of new media, gender, the constitution of identity, the construction of place, and the human relationship to meaning and the non-human.By Elizabeth Heiter. 2019
To help a desperate woman’s search,he’ll have to brave treacherous territory.In the wilds of Alaska, grieving former marine Colter Hayes…
shuts out the world…until he and his combat tracker dog become Kensie Morgan’s last hope of finding her long-missing sister. The improbable mission starts to rekindle Colter’s desire to rejoin the world—while saving Kensie from a killer unsettles his heart. Can they find all they are searching for before it’s too late?By Clive Bloom. 2020
“Simply put, there is absolutely nothing on the market with the range of ambition of this strikingly eclectic collection of…
essays. Not only is it impossible to imagine a more comprehensive view of the subject, most readers – even specialists in the subject – will find that there are elements of the Gothic genre here of which they were previously unaware.” - Barry Forshaw, Author of British Gothic Cinema and Sex and Film The Palgrave Handbook of Contemporary Gothic is the most comprehensive compendium of analytic essays on the modern Gothic now available, covering the vast and highly significant period from 1918 to 2019. The Gothic sensibility, over 200 years old, embraces its dark past whilst anticipating the future. From demons and monsters to post- apocalyptic fears and ecological fantasies, Gothic is thriving as never before in the arts and in popular culture. This volume is made up of 62 comprehensive chapters with notes and extended bibliographies contributed by scholars from around the world. The chapters are written not only for those engaged in academic research but also to be accessible to students and dedicated followers of the genre. Each chapter is packed with analysis of the Gothic in both theory and practice, as the genre has mutated and spread over the last hundred years. Starting in 1918 with the impact of film on the genre's development, and moving through its many and varied international incarnations, each chapter chronicles the history of the gothic milieu from the movies to gaming platforms and internet memes, television and theatre. The volume also looks at how Gothic intersects with fashion, music and popular culture: a multi-layered, multi-ethnic, even a trans-gendered experience as we move into the twenty first century.By Ruth Heholt, Holly-Gale Millette. 2020
This collection explores global dystopic, grotesque and retold narratives of degeneration, ecological and economic ruin, dystopia, and inequality in contemporary…
fictions set in the urban space. Divided into three sections—Identities and Histories, Ruin and Residue, and Global Gothic—The New Urban Gothic explores our anxieties and preoccupation with social inequalities, precarity and the peripheral that are found in so many new fictions across various media. Focusing on non-canonical Gothic global cities, this distinctive collection discusses urban centres in England’s Black Country, Moscow, Detroit, Seoul, Hong Kong, Bangkok, Singapore, Dehli, Srinigar, Shanghai and Barcelona as well as cities of the imaginary, the digital and the animated. This book will appeal to anyone interested in the intersections of time, place, space and media in contemporary Gothic Studies. The New Urban Gothic casts reflections and shadows on the age of the Anthropocene.By Clive Bloom. 2021
By the early 1830s the old school of Gothic literature was exhausted. Late Romanticism, emphasising as it did the uncertainties…
of personality and imagination, gave it a new lease of life. Gothic—the literature of disturbance and uncertainty—now produced works that reflected domestic fears, sexual crimes, drug filled hallucinations, the terrible secrets of middle class marriage, imperial horror at alien invasion, occult demonism and the insanity of psychopaths. It was from the 1830s onwards that the old gothic castle gave way to the country house drawing room, the dungeon was displaced by the sewers of the city and the villains of early novels became the familiar figures of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Dracula, Dorian Grey and Jack the Ripper. After the death of Prince Albert (1861), the Gothic became darker, more morbid, obsessed with demonic lovers, blood sucking ghouls, blood stained murderers and deranged doctors. Whilst the gothic architecture of the Houses of Parliament and the new Puginesque churches upheld a Victorian ideal of sobriety, Christianity and imperial destiny, Gothic literature filed these new spaces with a dread that spread like a plague to America, France, Germany and even Russia. From 1830 to 1914, the period covered by this volume, we saw the emergence of the greats of Gothic literature and the supernatural from Edgar Allan Poe to Emily Bronte, from Sheridan Le Fanu to Bram Stoker and Robert Louis Stevenson. Contributors also examine the fin-de-siècle dreamers of decadence such as Arthur Machen, M P Shiel and Vernon Lee and their obsession with the occult, folklore, spiritualism, revenants, ghostly apparitions and cosmic annihilation. This volume explores the period through the prism of architectural history, urban studies, feminism, 'hauntology' and much more. 'Horror', as Poe teaches us, 'is the soul of the plot'.By Tamara McKinley. 2013
1920. Having disobeyed the wishes of her aristocratic family, Lulu Pearson, a young and talented Tasmanian sculptress, finds herself alone…
in London in the wake of the Great War. The future is looking bright until, on the eve of her first exhibition, Lulu learns she has inherited a racing colt called Ocean Child from a mysterious benefactor, and she must return to her homeland to claim him. Baffled by the news, Lulu boards a ship to Tasmania to uncover the truth behind the strange bequest, but it seems a welcome return is more than she can hope for. Unbeknownst to Lulu, more than a few fortunes ride on Ocean Child's success - it seems everyone from her estranged mother to the stable hands has a part to play, and an interest in keeping the family secrets buried.By Pamela Clare. 2012
Pamela Clare brings her expert plotting, sizzling chemistry and thrilling adventure to her sweeping MacKinnon's Rangers series, in the grand…
tradition of The Last of the Mohicans, perfect for fans of Maya Banks, Monica McCarty and Zoe Archer.They were a band of brothers, their loyalty to one another forged by hardship and battle, the bond between these Highland warriors, rugged colonials, and fierce Native Americans stronger even than blood ties.Major Connor MacKinnon despises his commander, Lord William Wentworth, beyond all other men. Ordered to rescue Wentworth's niece after the Shawnee take her captive, he expects Lady Sarah Woodville to be every bit as contemptible as her uncle. Instead, he finds a brave and beautiful lass in desperate peril. But the only way to free Sarah is for Connor to defeat the Shawnee warrior who kidnapped her - and claim her himself.Torn by tragedy from her sheltered life in London, Lady Sarah is unprepared for the harshness of the frontier - or for the attraction she feels toward Connor. When they reach civilization, however, it is she who must protect him. For if her uncle knew all that Connor had done to save her, he would surely kill him. But the flames of passion, once kindled, are difficult to deny. As desire transforms into love, Connor will have to defy an empire to keep Sarah at his side.Be swept away by the other sexy MacKinnon's Rangers in Surrender and Untamed. Or take a wildly romantic ride with Pamela Clare's I-Team: Extreme Exposure, Hard Evidence, Unlawful Contact, Naked Edge, Breaking Point, Striking Distance, Seduction Game.By Pamela Clare. 2010
Fans of Suzanne Brockmann, Maya Banks, Christy Reece, Julie Ann Walker and Cindy Gerard will adore Pamela Clare's expertly plotted…
romantic suspense series, which sets the pages alight with sizzling chemistry. For tension, thrills, romance and passion take a spin with the I-Team.The day Navajo journalist Katherine James met Gabriel Rossiter, the earth literally moved beneath her feet when he saved her from a rockslide. So she is crushed when she recognizes her rescuer among the law enforcement officers throwing her and her friends off Mesa Butte, land they consider sacred. Gabe swore he would never again lose himself to a woman. But the attraction he feels to Kat is undeniable. And, appalled by his orders, he's determined to get to the bottom of events at Mesa Butte. But asking questions can be dangerous - almost as dangerous as risking one's heart. Soon Kat and Gabe's passion for the truth - and each other - makes them targets for those who would do anything, even kill, to keep Native Americans off their sacred land...Sexy. Thrilling. Unputdownable. Take a wildly romantic ride with Pamela Clare's I-Team: Extreme Exposure, Hard Evidence, Unlawful Contact, Naked Edge, Breaking Point, Striking Distance.By Nizar Zouidi. 2021
Performativity of Villainy and Evil in Anglophone Literature and Media studies the performative nature of evil characters, acts and emotions…
across intersecting genres, disciplines and historical eras. This collection brings together scholars and artists with different institutional standings, cultural backgrounds and (inter)disciplinary interests with the aim of energizing the ongoing discussion of the generic and thematic issues related to the representation of villainy and evil in literature and media. The volume covers medieval literature to contemporary literature and also examines important aspects of evil in literature such as social and political identity, the gothic and systemic evil practices. In addition to literature, the book considers examples of villainy in film, TV and media, revealing that performance, performative control and maneuverability are the common characteristics of villains across the different literary and filmic genres and eras studied in the volume.By Brenda Ayres, Sarah E. Maier. 2021
A Vindication of the Redhead investigates red hair in literature, art, television, and film throughout Eastern and Western cultures. This…
study examines red hair as a signifier, perpetuated through stereotypes, myths, legends, and literary and visual representations. Brenda Ayres and Sarah E. Maier provide a history of attitudes held by hegemonic populations toward red-haired individuals, groups, and genders from antiquity to the present. Ayres and Maier explore such diverse topics as Judeo-Christian narratives of red hair, redheads in Pre-Raphaelite paintings, red hair and gender identity, famous literary redheads such as Anne of Green Gables and Pippi Longstocking, contemporary and Neo-Victorian representations of redheads from the Black Widow to The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, and more. This book illuminates the symbolic significance and related ideologies of red hair constructed in mythic, religious, literary, and visual cultural discourse.By Andrew C. Wenaus. 2022
This book offers an examination of Jeff Noon’s iconoclastic debut novel, Vurt (1993). In this first book-length study of the…
novel, which includes an extended interview with Noon, Wenaus considers how Vurt complicates the process of literary canonization, its constructivist relationship to genre, its violent and oneiric setting of Manchester, its use of the Orphic myth as an archetype for the practice of literary collage and musical remix, and how the structural paradoxes of chaos and fractal geometry inform the novel’s content, form, and theme. Finally, Wenaus makes the case for Vurt’s ongoing relevance in the 21st century, an era increasingly characterized by neuro-totalitarianism, psychopolitics, and digital surveillance. With Vurt, Noon begins his project of rupturing feedback loops of control by breaking narrative habits and embracing the contingent and unpredictable. An inventive, energetic, and heartbreaking novel, Vurt is also an optimistic and heartfelt call for artists to actively create open futures.By Damien K. Picariello. 2020
The Politics of Horror features contributions from scholars in a variety of fields—political science, English, communication studies, and others—that explore…
the connections between horror and politics. How might resources drawn from the study of politics inform our readings of, and conversations about, horror? In what ways might horror provide a useful lens through which to consider enduring questions in politics and political thought? And what insights might be drawn from horror as we consider contemporary political issues? In turning to horror, the contributors to this volume offer fresh provocations to inform a broad range of discussions of politics.By Sophie Dungan. 2022
This Pivot traces the rise of the so-called “vegetarian” vampire in popular culture and contemporary vampire fiction, while also exploring…
how the shift in the diet of (some) vampires, from human to animal or synthetic blood, responds to a growing ecological awareness that is rapidly reshaping our understanding of relations with others species. The book introduces the trope of the vegetarian vampire, as well as important critical contexts for its discussion: the Anthropocene, food studies, and the modern practice, politics and ideologies of vegetarianism. Drawing on references to recent historical contexts and developments in the genre more broadly, the book investigates the vegetarian vampire’s relationship to other more violent and monstrous forms of the vampire in popular twenty-first century horror cinema and television. Texts discussed include Interview with the Vampire, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Twilight, The Vampire Diaries and True Blood. Reading the Vegetarian Vampire examines a new aspect of contemporary interest in considering vampire fiction.By Tamara Mckinley. 2013
1920. Having disobeyed the wishes of her aristocratic family, Lulu Pearson, a young and talented Tasmanian sculptress, finds herself alone…
in London in the wake of the Great War. The future is looking bright until, on the eve of her first exhibition, Lulu learns she has inherited a racing colt called Ocean Child from a mysterious benefactor, and she must return to her homeland to claim him. Baffled by the news, Lulu boards a ship to Tasmania to uncover the truth behind the strange bequest, but it seems a welcome return is more than she can hope for. Unbeknownst to Lulu, more than a few fortunes ride on Ocean Child's success - it seems everyone from her estranged mother to the stable hands has a part to play, and an interest in keeping the family secrets buried.By Tamara Mckinley. 2013
1920. Having disobeyed the wishes of her aristocratic family, Lulu Pearson, a young and talented Tasmanian sculptress, finds herself alone…
in London in the wake of the Great War. The future is looking bright until, on the eve of her first exhibition, Lulu learns she has inherited a racing colt called Ocean Child from a mysterious benefactor, and she must return to her homeland to claim him. Baffled by the news, Lulu boards a ship to Tasmania to uncover the truth behind the strange bequest, but it seems a welcome return is more than she can hope for. Unbeknownst to Lulu, more than a few fortunes ride on Ocean Child's success - it seems everyone from her estranged mother to the stable hands has a part to play, and an interest in keeping the family secrets buried.This book examines how the vampire has always been connected to ideas of infection, pollution and disease—even more so in…
the 21st century where it expresses the horrors of unseen and unstoppable disease and the foreboding and anxiety that accompany viral outbreaks and wider epidemics. Here the vampire gives physical form to the contagion and associated anxieties around the perceived causes and spread of disease, where it can take on many forms from animal to pestilential particulate matter, creeping shadows and even malignant weather systems. If blood is life, it is the body of the vampire that is death. This timely study looks at how and why the vampire continues to fulfil this function and posits that the true patient zero in the 21st century is no longer the dangerous, ancient, outsider from the East but is the undying monster that is Western culture itself.By Pamela Clare. 2008
Pamela Clare brings her expert plotting, sizzling chemistry and thrilling adventure to her breathtaking MacKinnon's Rangers series, in the grand…
tradition of The Last of the Mohicans, perfect for fans of Maya Banks, Monica McCarty and Zoe Archer.They were a band of brothers, their loyalty to one another forged by hardship and battle, the bond between these Highland warriors, rugged colonials, and fierce Native Americans stronger even than blood ties.Though forced to fight for the hated British, Morgan MacKinnon would no more betray the men he leads than slit his own throat - not even when he was captured by the French and threatened with an agonizing death by fire at the hands of their Abenaki allies. Only the look of innocent longing in the eyes of a convent-bred French lass could make him question his vow to escape and return to the Rangers. And soon the sweet passion he awoke in Amalie had him cursing the war that forced him to choose between upholding his honor and pledging himself to the woman he loves.Be swept away by the other sexy MacKinnon's Rangers in Surrender and Defiant. Or take a wildly romantic ride with Pamela Clare's I-Team: Extreme Exposure, Hard Evidence, Unlawful Contact, Naked Edge, Breaking Point, Striking Distance, Seduction Game.By Pamela Clare. 2006
Pamela Clare brings her expert plotting, sizzling chemistry and thrilling adventure to her sweeping MacKinnon's Rangers series, in the grand…
tradition of The Last of the Mohicans, perfect for fans of Maya Banks, Monica McCarty and Zoe Archer.They were a band of brothers, their loyalty to one another forged by hardship and battle, the bond between these Highland warriors, rugged colonials, and fierce Native Americans stronger even than blood ties.Iain MacKinnon had been forced to serve the British crown, but compassion urged him to save the lovely lass facing certain death at the hands of the Abenaki. He'd defied his orders, endangered his brothers, his men and his mission, all for a woman. But when he held Annie's sweet body in his arms, he could feel no regret. Though he sensed she was hiding something from him, it was too late to hold back his heart. In love and war, there are times when the only course of action is... Surrender.Be swept away by the other sexy MacKinnon's Rangers in Untamed and Defiant. Or take a wildly romantic ride with Pamela Clare's I-Team: Extreme Exposure, Hard Evidence, Unlawful Contact, Naked Edge, Breaking Point, Striking Distance, Seduction Game.Jane Austen and Vampires is the first book to investigate the literary convergence of Jane Austen and vampires in Austen…
fanfic after the success of Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight (2005) and Seth Grahame-Smith’s Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (2009). It asks how the shifting cultural values of Austen and the vampire have aligned, and what their connection might mean for their respective contemporary legacies. It also makes a case for reading “low brow” Austen fanfic attentively, as a way to gain meaningful insight directly from Austen fans into the tensions and anxieties surrounding contemporary notions of love, sex, femininity, and Austen’s modern currency. Offering close readings of Austen’s vampire-slaying heroines, vampiric retellings of Pride and Prejudice, and the transformation of Austen herself into a vampire, this book reveals Austen-vampire mashups as messy, complex entanglements that creatively and self-reflexively interrogate modern fantasies of vampire romance. By its unique intersection of Jane Austen with the vampire, the Gothic, fan culture and popular romance, Jane Austen and Vampires adds a new chapter to the history of Austen’s reception, for fans, students and scholars alike.