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Queer Others in Victorian Gothic: Transgressing Monstrosity (Gothic Literary Studies)
Author(s): Ardel Haefele-Thomas (Author)
- Publisher: University of Wales Press
- Publication Date: 15 Mar. 2012
- Language: English
- Print length: 224 pages
- ISBN-10: 0708324649
- ISBN-13: 9780708324646
Book Description
Queer Others in Victorian Gothic: Transgressing Monstrosity explores the intersections of Gothic, cultural, gender, queer, socio-economic and postcolonial theories in nineteenth-century British representations of sexuality, gender, class and race. From mid-century authors like Wilkie Collins and Elizabeth Gaskell to fin-de-siecle writers such as J. Sheridan Le Fanu, Florence Marryat and Vernon Lee, this study examines the ways that these Victorian writers utilized gothic horror as a proverbial ‘safe space’ in which to grapple with taboo social and cultural issues. This work simultaneously explores our current assumptions about a Victorian culture that was monolithic in its disdain for those who were ‘other’.
Editorial Reviews
Review
Ardel Haefele-Thomas’s ‘Queer Others in Victorian Gothic’ in Wales’s series Gothic Literary Studies applies Queer and Postcolonial theory to the Gothic fiction of Collins, Gaskell, Haggard, Le Fanu, Marryat, and Vernon Lee – with surprising results. In richly historicized contexts, Haefele-Thomas reveals refined explorations of Otherness in Victorian literature, as well as complicated empathies and tolerances that unsettle our critical assumptions. Teaching on a daily basis in San Francisco’s LGBT community, Haefele-Thomas has provided an accessible genealogy of our contemporary boundary crossings. It is a superb application of theory to literary history and to the present. Regenia Gagnier Professor of English, University of Exeter and President, British Association for Victorian Studies
About the Author
Ardel Haefele-Thomas is a Victorian and Queer Studies scholar and Chair of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Studies at City College of San Francisco.
