Limits of Horror
Technology, Bodies, Gothic
Published on 1. July 2008
Book
Hardback
240 pages
978-0-7190-7754-8 (ISBN)
Description
Horror isn't what it used to be. Nor are its Gothic avatars. The meaning of monsters, vampires and ghosts has changed significantly over the last two hundred years, as have the mechanisms (from fiction to fantasmagoria, film and video games) through which they are produced and consumed. Limits of horror, moving from gothic to cybergothic, through technological modernity and across a range of literary, cinematic and popular cultural texts, critically examines these changes and the questions they pose for understanding contemporary culture and subjectivity.
Re-examining key concepts such as the uncanny, the sublime, terror, shock and abjection in terms of their bodily and technological implications, this book advances current critical and theoretical debates on Gothic horror to propose a new theory of cultural production based on an extensive discussion of Freud's idea of the death drive. -- .
Re-examining key concepts such as the uncanny, the sublime, terror, shock and abjection in terms of their bodily and technological implications, this book advances current critical and theoretical debates on Gothic horror to propose a new theory of cultural production based on an extensive discussion of Freud's idea of the death drive. -- .
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Manchester
United Kingdom
Target group
College/higher education
Illustrations
Illustrations, black & white
Dimensions
Height: 234 mm
Width: 156 mm
ISBN-13
978-0-7190-7754-8 (9780719077548)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
Fred Botting is Professor in the Institute for Cultural Research, Lancaster University. -- .
Content
Acknowledgements; Introduction: Horror now and then; 1. Daddy's dead; 1.1 Gun of the father; 1.2 Beyond the paternal principle; 1.3 Gothic times; 1.4 Candygothic; 2. Tech noir; 2.1 Doom with a view; 2.2 Gothic shocks; 2.3 Reading machines; 2.4 Phantasmagoria; 2.5 The small scream; 3. Dark bodies; 3.1 An-aesthetics; 3.2 Horreality; 3.3 Black holes; 4. Beyond the Gothic principle; 4.1 A child's game; 4.2 Go-o-o-othic; 4.3 Dark precursor; 4.4 To infinity and beyond; References; Index.