Haunting Realities: Naturalist Gothic and American Realism is an extraordinary collection of essa... more Haunting Realities: Naturalist Gothic and American Realism is an extraordinary collection of essays by scholars deeply versed in American literary history and the nuances of genre studies. In their illuminating introduction, Elbert and Ryden nod to debates about whether “Gothicism or naturalism constitute a genre or a mode” without becoming mired in resolving those debates. Rather, their aim is “to better understand what reality certain late nineteenth-century American authors perceived and, inevitably, themselves helped to create and constitute through their work.” What matters more to the editors are the cultural practices and histories that blur the lines between a deterministic worldview and the gothic imaginings that represent it. Ryden and Elbert deftly trace the movement from Romance to Realism to naturalism and find that in turn-of-thecentury America, “reality becomes a Gothic ruin inflected through Darwinian science and Spencerian philosophy that can only be rendered as horrific or ghostly in human apprehension.” Haunted by the memory of slavery and the Civil War, alienated by a wage-slave economy, and anxious about changes in technology and science, the authors discussed— from norris to Crane to Dunbar to Wharton and more—use the Gothic to mediate the real-world terrors of American history. The seventeen essays in Haunting Realities are divided into five sections: Imprisoning Genders; Horrors of the Civil War and its Aftermath; Wicked Money, Haunted Objects; Paranormal Longings and Warnings; and Spectral Landscapes and Locations. not only do these divisions help to organize the volume, they make the experience of reading it something like attending a smart literary conference; each essay in each chapter seems to be pointedly in conversation with the insights of the others. The volume includes essays by critics whose interests are as diverse as the chapter headings suggest. There are, however, a few texts—both literary and critical—that recur as touchstones throughout the collection: Frank norris’ McTeague, Stephen Crane’s The Monster, Elizabeth Stuart Phelps’ The Gates Ajar, the short stories of Charles Chestnutt, and the critical work of Charles Crow, Teresa Goddu, Keith newlin, Donald Pizer, and Maisha Wester, to name a few.
Contents: Introduction: battle with the world: theorizing same-sex desire in antebellum American ... more Contents: Introduction: battle with the world: theorizing same-sex desire in antebellum American literature Phallic images: Fuller, Lacan, and gender politics Ligeia's lament: femininity and the erotics of race New girls and bandit brides: female narcissism and lesbian desire in Fuller's Summer on the Lakes No country for melancholy young men: mourning and hypocrisy in Poe's Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket American shudders: race, representation, and sodomy in Redburn Hester is burning: desire and gendered grief in The Scarlet Letter Bibliography Index.
A new essay collection praises the current version of Battlestar Galactica for its gritty complex... more A new essay collection praises the current version of Battlestar Galactica for its gritty complexity. But is there something ideologically suspect in this “complexity”
Haunting Realities: Naturalist Gothic and American Realism is an extraordinary collection of essa... more Haunting Realities: Naturalist Gothic and American Realism is an extraordinary collection of essays by scholars deeply versed in American literary history and the nuances of genre studies. In their illuminating introduction, Elbert and Ryden nod to debates about whether “Gothicism or naturalism constitute a genre or a mode” without becoming mired in resolving those debates. Rather, their aim is “to better understand what reality certain late nineteenth-century American authors perceived and, inevitably, themselves helped to create and constitute through their work.” What matters more to the editors are the cultural practices and histories that blur the lines between a deterministic worldview and the gothic imaginings that represent it. Ryden and Elbert deftly trace the movement from Romance to Realism to naturalism and find that in turn-of-thecentury America, “reality becomes a Gothic ruin inflected through Darwinian science and Spencerian philosophy that can only be rendered as horrific or ghostly in human apprehension.” Haunted by the memory of slavery and the Civil War, alienated by a wage-slave economy, and anxious about changes in technology and science, the authors discussed— from norris to Crane to Dunbar to Wharton and more—use the Gothic to mediate the real-world terrors of American history. The seventeen essays in Haunting Realities are divided into five sections: Imprisoning Genders; Horrors of the Civil War and its Aftermath; Wicked Money, Haunted Objects; Paranormal Longings and Warnings; and Spectral Landscapes and Locations. not only do these divisions help to organize the volume, they make the experience of reading it something like attending a smart literary conference; each essay in each chapter seems to be pointedly in conversation with the insights of the others. The volume includes essays by critics whose interests are as diverse as the chapter headings suggest. There are, however, a few texts—both literary and critical—that recur as touchstones throughout the collection: Frank norris’ McTeague, Stephen Crane’s The Monster, Elizabeth Stuart Phelps’ The Gates Ajar, the short stories of Charles Chestnutt, and the critical work of Charles Crow, Teresa Goddu, Keith newlin, Donald Pizer, and Maisha Wester, to name a few.
Contents: Introduction: battle with the world: theorizing same-sex desire in antebellum American ... more Contents: Introduction: battle with the world: theorizing same-sex desire in antebellum American literature Phallic images: Fuller, Lacan, and gender politics Ligeia's lament: femininity and the erotics of race New girls and bandit brides: female narcissism and lesbian desire in Fuller's Summer on the Lakes No country for melancholy young men: mourning and hypocrisy in Poe's Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket American shudders: race, representation, and sodomy in Redburn Hester is burning: desire and gendered grief in The Scarlet Letter Bibliography Index.
A new essay collection praises the current version of Battlestar Galactica for its gritty complex... more A new essay collection praises the current version of Battlestar Galactica for its gritty complexity. But is there something ideologically suspect in this “complexity”
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