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Legacy of Gothic Tradition in Horror Fiction
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Legacy of Gothic Tradition in Horror Fiction

A special issue of Humanities (ISSN 2076-0787).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 October 2024) | Viewed by 2981

Special Issue Editor

Dr. Sharon Gallagher

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
The Behrend College, Penn State University, State College, PA, USA
Interests: 19th century British gothic and vampire fiction; 19th century Irish literature; Charles Robert Maturin; Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu; Bram Stoker; James Malcolm Rymer; folklore; mythology' mystery literature

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues, 

The phrase “gothic tradition” often evokes images of isolated castles, stormy weather, distressed heroines, plotting villains, ghosts, family secrets and secret passageways, and heroes with excellent timing. Many think of Horace Walpole’s 18th century The Castle of Otranto (1764) as the beginning of gothic, Ann Radcliffe and Matthew Lewis as popularizing and defining the genre, and Charles Robert Maturin as writing “the last” of the gothic novels, Melmoth the Wanderer (1820). 

However, as indicated in the title of this special issue, the gothic tradition continues; it passed along its legacy to many creative talents who have produced works into the present day. This issue will focus upon gothic’s influence in horror fiction. 

Please consider submitting a proposal for an essay that explores one of the many possible avenues of gothic’s presence within horror fiction. Like gothic and its influence, the range of subjects that may be examined is extensive, and this issue hopes to demonstrate this diversity in its publications. 

What ideas for an essay occurred as you read this CFP? Did a particular horror text come to mind? How was it influenced by the gothic tradition? Why would this influence be important? Are the influences literary? Cultural? Pivotal and/or groundbreaking? Are there consistent gothic elements(s) that seem to be essential to a horror author, time period, place, and/or culture? Why are these gothic element(s) significant? Is the “text” a film or television production inspired by fiction? What do these visual representations of horror fiction convey about gothic to their audiences? How does the gothic tradition appear in your teaching of horror fiction or a visual adaptation of a text? Why is it important for students to learn about the gothic tradition within horror? 

These are only a few of the many questions that may be investigated surrounding the legacy of the gothic tradition in horror fiction. Please send an abstract of 500 words with a short bibliography to Dr. Sharon M. Gallagher at [email protected] by 30 November 2023. Finished essays of 5000–6000 words (not including bibliographic information) will be due by 31 May 2024. 

Much appreciation for your time and your forthcoming proposal.

Dr. Sharon Gallagher
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Humanities is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

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Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

11 pages, 227 KiB  
Article
“No Way Out”: The Gothic Concept of Home in Shirley Jackson’s Horror Fiction
by Margherita Orsi
Humanities 2024, 13(5), 125; https://doi.org/10.3390/h13050125 - 28 Sep 2024
Viewed by 1061
Abstract
The “haunted house formula” is a central component in every Female Gothic narrative from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Typically, it revolves around a heroine trapped in a gloomy mansion, seeking to escape a male villain. This trope, which covertly explores feminine anxieties [...] Read more.
The “haunted house formula” is a central component in every Female Gothic narrative from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Typically, it revolves around a heroine trapped in a gloomy mansion, seeking to escape a male villain. This trope, which covertly explores feminine anxieties such as domestic confinement and familial oppression, recurs multiple times in Shirley Jackson’s “house trilogy” as well, namely The Sundial, The Haunting of Hill House, and We Have Always Lived in the Castle. However, as noted by many critics, while Female Gothic narratives usually conclude with the protagonist’s successful escape and her marriage to the male hero, in Jackson’s fiction, there is “no way out”. Her protagonists remain confined within the domestic space. This essay explores Jackson’s reappropriation of the haunted house trope as a symbol of the paranoia experienced by women in 1950s suburban America. The analysis begins by outlining the theme in traditional Female Gothic fiction, followed by an account of the sociohistorical context in which Jackson operated, without dismissing the significancy of her personal life experiences as well. Jackson’s “house trilogy” will then be examined, paying particular attention to the ways in which the haunted house formula is subverted to function not as an escape narrative, but as a metaphor for modern women’s inescapable confinement. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Legacy of Gothic Tradition in Horror Fiction)
16 pages, 246 KiB  
Article
The Return of the Repressed: The Subprime Haunted House
by Jaleesa Rena Harris
Humanities 2024, 13(5), 124; https://doi.org/10.3390/h13050124 - 26 Sep 2024
Viewed by 716
Abstract
This article merges evaluations of Black life through the Southern Gothic and the intersection of Black studies to conceptualize the “Black Gothic”. The Black Gothic conceives of a future that requires closely examining the past and the present primarily through a Southern Gothic [...] Read more.
This article merges evaluations of Black life through the Southern Gothic and the intersection of Black studies to conceptualize the “Black Gothic”. The Black Gothic conceives of a future that requires closely examining the past and the present primarily through a Southern Gothic and Black horror lens. Much of Black Gothic’s analytics depended upon the framework outlined within Afro-pessimism and the subprime; however, it differs in its pursuits of reparations as a way forward. The Black Gothic focuses on intermingling the lived anti-Black experiences of Black existence with supernatural gothic traditions, forcing readers to determine which experience is more horrific. The Black Gothic functions as a mode of interaction with the Southern Gothic and the Black horror visual genres; its definition invokes literary and visual modes and genres that expand the many depictions of Black life in America when it is constantly threatened by elimination and devaluation. The Black horror genre seeks to expose the “afterlife of slavery” through actual and speculative means. Meanwhile, Southern Gothic’s ability to cross temporal bounds makes these the ideal genres to present the enslaved’s repressed and debted history. Southern Gothic replaced ruined gothic castles with plantations; Black Gothic replaced plantations and the monolithic “South” with northern sundown towns, redlining, and subprime mortgages. The Black Gothic’s methodology uses a systemic fiscal devaluation of Black ownership, self, and property through the subprime. In company with Fred Moten’s conceptualization of the subprime, the Black Gothic views being marked as “subprime” as an antecedent to predatory housing practices; it is instead the moment that captured Africans experience social death. Using Toni Morrison’s Beloved and Misha Green’s HBO adaptation of Matt Ruff’s novel Lovecraft Country, I define the Black Gothic and then outline its capacity to function as an analytic to further both the Southern Gothic and Black horror genres. The Black Gothic transcends gothic traditions by including films and texts that are not categorically gothic or horror and exposes the horrific and gothic modes primarily exhibited through the treatment of the descendants of enslaved Africans. Comprehensively, this article argues for a space to view the future re-evaluation of Black life through speculative and practical reparations. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Legacy of Gothic Tradition in Horror Fiction)
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