Religious Horror and the Ecogothic

Reviews / Votes

This collection highlights the centrality of nature in literary narrative, juxtaposed with the catastrophe of climate change. The combined, and somewhat contorted, denial of "humanity's impact on the environment" (p. 7) and the rhetoric of dominion and stewardship espousals by reactionary Evangelical Christians are contrasted with a view of humanity as interacting with nature. Analysis of the trope of the whale-from the Book of Jonah to Cotton Mather's jeremiad on "the monstrous features of baleen whales" (p. 26), to Jonathan Greenaway's delineation of how Captain Ahab's monomaniacal pursuit enables "countervailing discourses of resistance" (p. 84)-shows how acknowledging the power of sea animals dislodges human complacency. Christopher M. Scott's analysis of Algernon Blackwood's The Glamour of the Snow shows how the story can horrify and entertain, but also mime spiritual growth. Conversely, by deploying the theories of Charles Taylor, Madeline Potter shows how the horror fiction of J. Sheridan Le Fanu practices an "occlusive re-enactment" (p. 111) that cements profane horror ahead of sacred reassurance. An epilogue linking climate change to the current fighting in Gaza foregrounds the urgency that yokes the polyvalent analyses at play in this volume. Recommended. Advanced undergraduates through faculty. * Choice Reviews * Religious Horror and the Ecogothic provides the first sustained analysis of the representation of Anglophone Christianity in the Ecogothic. It reflects on why Christianity is represented as complicit with anti-ecological views in texts and other media from the eighteenth century to the present day. This is a timely and important book which examines how religious interests have been used to support anti-ecological capitalist ambitions. -- Andrew Smith, University of Sheffield, UK Theology and the Gothic imagination have been intertwined in constructing fearful visions of the natural world, and an engagement with both is needed to change the narrative: this expansive and diverse collection does just that. This is a crucial and fascinating addition to the field of ecogothic criticism. -- Kevin Corstophine, University of Hull Religious Horror and the Ecogothic opens up a new debate regarding the tense relationship between the spiritual and the material in the rich textuality that is the Ecogothic. This landmark collection will be essential reading for ecocritics and Gothicists alike, and it will, without a doubt, prove a profound influence upon the next generation of Ecogothic scholars. -- William Hughes, University of Macau