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Department of English » Gothic Studies » PhD Study in the Gothic

We provide doctoral supervision on all aspects of the Gothic, from the eighteenth century to the present day, and across disciplines, especially literature, film, television and video games. We also supervise dissertations in Gothic Creative Writing. You can browse through our specialist staff profiles for areas of expertise here .

If you would like to undertake PhD study in the Gothic, it is possible to apply for funding through the AHRC consortium for the North West. Details can be found on the North West Consortium Doctoral Training Partnership website .

For Gothic-specific queries, please e-mail us here . For general PhD application queries, please e-mail Dr Andrew Moor here .

Our Current Students And Their Projects

Rebecca alaise, ‘gothic soundscapes of the long nineteenth century: ethereal instruments and the divine voice’ (2020-).

This project explores the singing voice as a site from which a variety of gothic transgressions emanate, examining how interactions between literary representation and interpretation enhance gothic music’s alterity and amplify vocal uncanniness. This study considers the ways gothicists from the 1820s to the fin de siècle used sonic dissonance to subvert the celestial wholesomeness of ‘divine’ vocality through the corporeality of operatic Divas and musical virtuosos, as well as choristers and monks, allowing wider scrutiny of sonic gothic motifs. 

Contact Rebecca

Fredrik Blanc, ‘“In Deep Waters”: Thalassophobia and Oceanic Transcorporealities in Modern and Contemporary Weird Fiction’ (2019-)

Fredrik’s thesis explores the materiality of the sea as a Weird space and ontology. Focussing on sea monsters and hybrids as representational intermediaries between human and other-than-human agencies in the oceanic context, he aims to investigate and re-evaluate literary and cultural discourses surrounding the sea, from evolutionary controversies of the nineteenth century to the ecological crises of the present day.

Contact Fred

Katherine Anne Burn, 'The Shame(d) Subject: Reading the Phenomenology of Shame and Temporality in Contemporary British Fiction' (AHRC NWCDTP award, 2017-2020

Contemporary British fiction reveals a topography of cultural and elemental anxiety. Turbulent landscapes frame experimental narratives that seek to recalibrate the self in this newly emerging period of post-postmodernism. My thesis investigates the relationship between phenomenological shame and time, and ultimately, its effect on the ontology of the subject.

Contact Katherine

Hayley Louise Charlesworth, ‘Depraved’ Bisexuals: Biphobia and Bi-Erasure in Post-Millennial Gothic Television (2018-)

Hayley’s thesis combines studies in queer theory, television studies and the gothic to examine issues of biphobia and bi-erasure in post-millennial gothic television. In particular, this research identifies a trend of problematic depictions of bisexuality within the gothic, and questions why the transgressive, binary-rejecting nature of bisexuality has been overlooked in queer gothic studies. Hayley previously won Manchester Metropolitan University’s Outstanding Academic Achievement Prize, is a contributing guest speaker for Romancing the Gothic, and is one of the organisers of the Absent Presences project.

Contact Hayley

Alice Durocher, ‘Gothic Cities: Manchester, Edinburgh and Paris in Contemporary Literature and the Cultural Imagination’ (2021-)

Manchester, Edinburgh and Paris are often represented as gothicised cities. This thesis uses transcultural and hauntological theories and applies them to the urban space to analyse the gothicisation of these cities from the nineteenth century onwards. I argue that gothic attractions, which flourish in these cities, bring new significance to the gothicisation of the urban space.

Contact Alice

Kerry Gorrill, 'MUTATING MANORS MAKYTH THE MAN: Men and Domestic Space in American Gothic Narratives' (2018)

Kerry's area of interest is the relationship between the masculine subject and domestic space in American Gothic literature. In particular, her thesis explores the ways in which American Gothic frequently generates a particularly schizophrenic and fragile male subject whose presence in domestic space seems to force that space to come to life, mutate and interact with the subject in order to bring about his death or ejection.

Contact Kerry

Charlotte Gough, ‘In the Devil We Trust: Masculine Trauma and Satanic Panic in American Gothic Film’ (AHRC NWCDTP Award, 2018-)

Charlotte’s thesis examines a notable trend in America Gothic cinema of the 1980s and 1990s that engages with the ‘Satanic Panic’, a contextual phenomenon of widespread occult hysteria in the US. Drawing upon psychoanalysis, gender theory and American political studies, the project identifies this trend’s distinct relationship to, and representation of, toxic masculinity and national identity that defined this period. Such that is now being retroactively echoed by the political landscape and, similarly Satanic, popular screen culture of the Trump administration. Charlotte has previously been published in  The Irish Journal of Gothic and Horror Studies  and  Fantastika Journal .

Twitter: @CharGough7

Contact Charlotte

David Griffiths, ‘A Writer’s Investigation into Method and Gendering in Paranormal Young Adult Fiction’ (2019-)

David is writing a Young Adult novel,  How to Draw Ghosts . His thesis also traces narrative patterns and tropes across a range of contemporary paranormal fiction aimed at Young Adult audiences, covering the period from 1970 to the present day. He evaluates existing techniques for engaging YA audiences with supernatural and paranormal themes and is building on these to develop new storytelling techniques.

Contact David

Esther Hudson, ‘The Song of the Banshee: Voicing the Other in Historical Gothic Fiction’ (2020-)

Esther is writing a ‘crossover’ historical-gothic novel, told from the dual perspectives of an Irish banshee, and a young woman growing up in Dublin during the period 1916-22, who becomes embroiled in the Irish Rebellion. The novel explores a post-colonial reading of Anglo-Irish history and her critical work investigates how writers can give voice to ‘mute’ figures of history and myth.

Contact Esther

Kirsten Kasai, ‘The Cycle: Creative-Critical Exploration of the Veneration and Vilification of Witchcraft’ (2021-)

Kirsten is writing two complementary texts (a novel and a critical thesis) that explore archetypal representations of witches and witchcraft, and of their supernatural power by examining witches in relation to biological, female reproductive cycles. She addresses the cultural uses of the witch as a scapegoat, and how accusations of witchcraft and the persecution of the accused have been historically employed to sustain and reinforce economic, political, and sexual domination.

Contact Kirsten

Karmel Knipprath, ‘‘Always, worlds within worlds’: Clive Barker’s Transmedial Gothic, 1978-Present’ (2022-)

Karmel’s research identifies British-born polymath, Clive Barker, as an important yet significantly undertheorized figure in the field of Gothic Studies. Her thesis argues that Barker’s unconventional and sophisticated use of the Gothic has allowed him to successfully advance, expand, and, at times, completely reconfigure the formal, aesthetic, and political limitations of multiple media, including theatre, literature, film, and the plastic arts, across a four-decade career. 

Contact Karmel

James McCrae: ‘A Cultural History of the Animated Skeleton, 1700–1900’ (2019-).

James’s thesis seeks to provide a cultural history of the animated skeleton in British culture of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Interdisciplinary in its approach, it seeks to enrich recent scholarship on the relationship between Gothic and death with insights gleaned from the history of funerary architecture and internment.

Contact James

Luke Moloney, Hybrid Geographies: Ecocritical Horror in Contemporary Science Fiction, 1998–2020' (2020-)

Luke’s thesis focuses on contemporary science fiction, demonstrating its engagement with ecological anxiety and anthropocentric modalities through its incorporation of the horrific. Their work aims to demonstrate the value of considering generic hybridity through an eco-critical lens, revealing transgressive and radical potentialities for living with, and through, the Anthropocene.  

Contact Luke

Matteo Polato, ‘The Role of Resonance-based Processes in the Emergence of Experiences of the Supernatural. (2019-)

Matteo’s research focuses on the study of supernatural experiences, exploring how notions of sound, vibration and resonance intervene in the sensation of the eerie. He is seeking a novel epistemological and methodological approach to highlight the mutual relationship between the material-affective and the cultural-discursive dimensions within those processual and performative dynamics, that pave the way for the possibility of the supernatural.

Contact Matteo  

Leonie Rowland, ‘Commodity Animism in the Japanese Gothic’ (AHRC NWCDTP Award, 2021-)

Leonie is researching Japanese Gothic depictions of commodity animism—that is, the symbolic animation of the material world in a commercial context. This marketing technique, emerging from the intersection of capitalist materiality and indigenous spirituality, provides a vehicle for the Gothic expression of alternative forms of horror that expose rather than reinforce the harm enacted by a socioeconomic system that desecrates the spiritual.

Contact: Leonie

Twitter: @leonie_rowland

Ali Shannan, ‘Middle Eastern Gothic Literature’ (2021-)

Ali’s thesis focuses on middle eastern gothic literature and how far this has moulded our understanding of rising hostile western attitudes towards the orient. Approaching these issues through geopolitics, the aim is to assess the postcolonial struggles through gothic texts and films, exploring how these conflicts have often represented or misrepresented events and how far this influenced our perspective of the middle east and all that it hides.

Contact Ali

Rob Sutton, ‘“We wonder how they think so soundly and speak so well”: Anne Grant and the Gaelic Rejection of Gothic Enlightenment’ (2018-)

Rob’s research aims to recuperate the writing of the nineteenth-century Scottish writer Anne MacVicar Grant. It diverges from existing scholarly criticism in that, rather than interpreting Grant as politically and culturally ambiguous, it proposes Grant’s fixed adherence to a Jacobite political and cultural ethos. His research explores how Grant’s commitment to the Gaelic origins of the Scottish people conflicted with contemporary notions of Scotland’s Gothic origins.

Contact Rob 

Isobelle Whinnettt, ‘Queer Female Voices in Gothic and Fantasy Contemporary Young Adult Fiction’ (2020-)

Isobelle’s thesis investigates novels published at the intersection of contemporary queer YA and Gothic Fantasy, evaluating common literary tropes and techniques. Her creative work, the novel ‘We Build Our Girls Grieving’, adds to this body of fiction a Gothic Fantasy novel with a queer female ensemble cast. As a queer female writer, Isobelle’s brings fresh insights to critical and creative work in this area and advocates for positive representation in genre fiction.

Contact Isobelle

Maartje Weenink, ’10 – 6 = 4, “king” – “man” = ‘”queen”: A Computational Approach to the representations of European National Identities in the British Gothic Novel “Genre” Using Word-Embeddings’ (2018-)

Maartje aims to create a large corpus of annotated late eighteenth- and early nineteenth century British Gothic fiction to computationally uncover trends in (the representation of European national characters and settings in) Gothic fiction using word-embeddings. This corpus will enable a quantitative approach towards comparing different sub-categories of the Gothic by relating the texts and their meta-data to the socio-historic contexts in which they were produced. 

Contact Maartje

Previously Completed Theses

• Dr Teresa Fitzpatrick, ‘Killer Plants & Gothic Gardeners: Gendered Eco-Monsters of The Gothic from 1890-2015’(2022)
• Dr Oliver Rendle, ‘Live. Laugh. Loathe.’: Cosmic Humour and Contemporary Pessimism in Literature and on Screen (1969-2019)’ (2022)
• Dr Rebecca Wynne-Walsh, ‘Basque Gothic Cinema (1990-2021): A Regionalist Challenge to the Spanish Model of National Cinematic Production and Cultural Identity’ (2022)
• Dr Alicia Edwards, ‘“There Are Things Going Bump in the Night All Over This Town”: Gothic Tourism, Haunted London, and the Geographies of Haunted Space’ (2021)
• Dr Heather O. Petrocelli, ‘Horror Film and the Queer Spectator: An Empirical Study of the Spectatorial Relationships between Queerness, Genre, and Drag Performance’ (2021)
• Dr Keith O’Sullivan, ‘“Somewhere I Had to Go”: The Postmodernist and Posthumanist Gothic Transmutations of Ramsey Campbell’s Longer Fictions, 1981—2016' (2021)
• Dr Nicole Dittmer, ‘Wilderness and Female “Monstrosity”: A Material Ecofeminist Reading of Victorian Gothic Fiction’ (2021)
• Dr Robyn Ollett, ‘Queer Lives through Dead Eyes: Observing the New Queer Gothic’ (2020)
• Dr Ian Murphy, ‘Art, Androgyny and the Femme Fatale in Decadent Fictions of the Nineteenth century’ (2020)
• Dr Andreea Ros, ‘“The Haunting Memory of Contagions”: Infectious Narratives and Crisis in Liberal Biopolitics' (2019)
• Dr Holly Hirst, 'The Theology of the Early British Gothic: 1760-1830' (2019)
• Dr Rachid M'Rabty, 'Beyond Transgression: Violence, Nihilism and Neoliberalism in Contemporary Self-Destructive Fiction' (2019)
• Dr Jonathan Greenaway, Language of the Sacred: The Nineteenth Century Gothic Novel and Imaginative Apologetics (2018)
• Dr Richard Gough Thomas, Scepticism and Experience in the Educational Writing of William Godwin (2015)
• Dr Jason Crellin, Schizo-Gothic Subjectivity: H.P. Lovecraft and Williams S. Burroughs (2014)
• Dr Mary Jane Ainsley, Contemporary Thai Horror Film: A Monstrous Hybrid (2012)
• Dr Zoe Lambert, When I Get Home: A Collection of Short Stories and Accompanying Critical Commentary (2010)
• Dr Gail Ashurst, In the Footsteps of The Wicker Man: Personal Mythopoesis and the Processes of Cult Film Fandom (2009)

PhD Development

In recognition of the growing number of Gothic postgraduate researchers at Manchester Met and in the North West, the Gothic Centre has thus far hosted two postgraduate-focused development days.

The Gothic Networking Day ran on the 12th of July 2014 and gave postgraduate researchers a unique opportunity to learn about Gothic Studies in the United Kingdom. The day included talks from the co-president of the International Gothic Association, the editor of the journal Gothic Studies, the editors of The Irish Journal of Gothic and Horror Studies, the commissioning editor of the Gothic Studies book series at the University of Wales Press, education professionals and representatives from Twisted Tales and Grimmfest Film Festival. The event was supported by the  Higher Education Academy  and was reviewed positively reviewed by the  The Gothic Imagination website .

The second of these days, the ‘Gothic Studies Postgraduate Training Day’, was held in June 2017. This was an opportunity to share information about presenting at conferences, writing for journals and networking. A plenary was given by Dr Emma McEvoy (University of Westminster) on Gothic Sound in Ann Radcliffe’s fiction.

In 2019, our PGR cohort organised Absent Presences: Shifting the Core and Peripheries of the Gothic Mode (27-28 June), a two-day conference inspired by their research.

In 2021, our PGR cohort organised the Gothic Approaches webinars to showcase their current work. The series is available to watch on YouTube .

• © 2009

The Female Gothic

New Directions

• Diana Wallace (Reader in English) 0 ,
• Andrew Smith (Professor of English Studies) 1

University of Glamorgan, UK

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Table of contents (13 chapters)

Front matter, introduction: defining the female gothic.

Diana Wallace, Andrew Smith

Female Gothic and the Institutionalisation of Gothic Studies

• Lauren Fitzgerald

‘The Haunting Idea’: Female Gothic Metaphors and Feminist Theory

• Diana Wallace

‘Mother Radcliff’: Ann Radcliffe and the Female Gothic

• Robert Miles

Disturbing the Female Gothic: An Excavation of the Northanger Novels

• Angela Wright

Bleeding Nuns: A Genealogy of the Female Gothic Grotesque

• Alison Milbank

From Bluebeard’s Bloody Chamber to Demonic Stigmatic

• Marie Mulvey-Roberts

Keeping It in the Family: Incest and the Female Gothic Plot in du Maurier and Murdoch

• Avril Horner, Sue Zlosnik

‘I Don’t Want to be a [White] Girl’: Gender, Race and Resistance in the Southern Gothic

• Meredith Miller

Children of the Night: Shirley Jackson’s Domestic Female Gothic

• Andrew Smith

Others, Monsters, Ghosts: Representations of the Female Gothic Body in Toni Morrison’s Beloved and Love

• Anya Heise-von der Lippe

‘Unhomely Moments’: Reading and Writing Nation in Welsh Female Gothic

• Kirsti Bohata

Monstrous Regiments of Women and Brides of Frankenstein: Gendered Body Politics in Scottish Female Gothic Fiction

• Carol Margaret Davison

Back Matter

Book Title : The Female Gothic

Book Subtitle : New Directions

Editors : Diana Wallace, Andrew Smith

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230245457

Publisher : Palgrave Macmillan London

eBook Packages : Palgrave Literature & Performing Arts Collection , Literature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)

Copyright Information : Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited 2009

Hardcover ISBN : 978-0-230-22271-7 Published: 12 November 2009

Softcover ISBN : 978-1-349-30830-9 Published: 12 November 2009

eBook ISBN : 978-0-230-24545-7 Published: 12 November 2009

Edition Number : 1

Number of Pages : XIII, 219

Topics : Nineteenth-Century Literature , Twentieth-Century Literature , Gender Studies , Eighteenth-Century Literature

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Gender Roles, Proto-Feminism and Patriarchy in Gothic Literature

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Quinn, Caroline. "Dueling Dualities: The Power of Architecture in American Gothic Literature." Scholarship @ Claremont, 2017. http://scholarship.claremont.edu/scripps_theses/897.

Smith, Candice. ""Fine old castles" and "pull-me-down works" : architecture, politics, and gender in the Gothic novel of the 1790s." Thesis, University of Aberdeen, 2014. http://digitool.abdn.ac.uk:80/webclient/DeliveryManager?pid=203790.

Prungnaud, Joëlle. "Gothique et décadence recherches sur la continuité d'un mythe et d'un genre au XIXe siècle en Grande-Bretagne et en France /." Paris : H. Champion, 1997. http://catalog.hathitrust.org/api/volumes/oclc/37815430.html.

Andrews, Elizabeth. "Devouring the Gothic : food and the Gothic body." Thesis, University of Stirling, 2008. http://hdl.handle.net/1893/375.

Grzesiak, Filip. "Capturing the Gothic Line : Parametric Exploration of the Gothic Ornament." Thesis, KTH, Arkitektur, 2018. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:kth:diva-229425.

Davison, Carol Margaret. "Gothic Cabala : the anti-semitic spectropoetics of British Gothic literature." Thesis, McGill University, 1997. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=34941.

Slagle, Judith Bailey. "Gothic Interactions: Italian Gothic Translations of Margaret Holford Hodson." Digital Commons @ East Tennessee State University, 2013. https://dc.etsu.edu/etsu-works/3222.

Davison, Carol Margaret. "Gothic Cabala, the anti-semitic spectropoetics of British Gothic literature." Thesis, National Library of Canada = Bibliothèque nationale du Canada, 1998. http://www.collectionscanada.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk1/tape11/PQDD_0002/NQ44401.pdf.

Smith, Sarah Nicole. "Group representations in Gothic literature /." Available to subscribers only, 2006. http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=1136093421&sid=6&Fmt=2&clientId=1509&RQT=309&VName=PQD.

Garcia, de Leon Olga Marissa. "A Curriculum on Gothic Literature." Thesis, The University of Arizona, 2013. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/323631.

Heinemann, Chloe Janelle. "Women's Agency in Gothic Literature." Thesis, The University of Arizona, 2015. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/595049.

Deans, Sharon. "Teen Gothic : sex, death and autonomy in young adult Gothic literature." Thesis, University of Stirling, 2013. http://hdl.handle.net/1893/15908.

Cartwright, Amy. "The future is Gothic : elements of Gothic in dystopian novels." Thesis, University of Glasgow, 2005. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/1346/.

Malone, Catherine. "Charlotte Bronte : Gothic autobiographies." Thesis, University of Oxford, 1993. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.385569.

Maguire, Muireann. "Soviet Gothic-fantastic : a study of Gothic and supernatural themes in early Soviet literature." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2009. https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/224215.

Wilson, Mary E. "Gothic cathedral as theology and literature." [Tampa, Fla] : University of South Florida, 2009. http://purl.fcla.edu/usf/dc/et/SFE0002826.

Grant, Lindy M. "Gothic architecture in Normandy, c.1150-1250." Thesis, Courtauld Institute of Art (University of London), 1986. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.281784.

Weston, Lindy. "Gothic architecture and the liturgy in construction." Thesis, University of Kent, 2018. https://kar.kent.ac.uk/67341/.

Pak, Chiu-shuen Tom, and 白昭璇. "Stephen King's popular Gothic: Gothic meta-fiction, ideology, scatology and (re)construction of community." Thesis, The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong), 2006. http://hub.hku.hk/bib/B37844325.

Bodley, Antonie Marie. "Gothic horror, monstrous science, and steampunk." Pullman, Wash. : Washington State University, 2009. http://www.dissertations.wsu.edu/Thesis/Summer2009/a_bodley_052109.pdf.

LaDuke, Aaron J. "Gothic Trends in Contemporary Great Plains Literature." Ohio University / OhioLINK, 2013. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou1368028912.

Chase, Davis William. "Architectural design principles as evidenced in Gothic architecture." Thesis, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 1985. http://hdl.handle.net/10919/53714.

Pak, Chiu-shuen Tom. "Stephen King's popular Gothic Gothic meta-fiction, ideology, scatology and (re)construction of community /." Click to view the E-thesis via HKUTO, 2006. http://sunzi.lib.hku.hk/hkuto/record/B37844325.

Malet-Dagreou, Cecile. "Evil in gothic fiction, 1764-1820." Thesis, Goldsmiths College (University of London), 1999. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.313598.

Michaud, Marilyn. "Republicanism and the American Gothic." Thesis, University of Stirling, 2006. http://hdl.handle.net/1893/110.

Shlyak, Tatyana. "Secret as a key to narration : evolution from English Gothic to the Gothic in Dostoyevsky /." Thesis, Connect to this title online; UW restricted, 2004. http://hdl.handle.net/1773/6667.

Bayless, James D. "Digital Gothic: Integration and Material Experimentation in Contemporary Architecture." University of Cincinnati / OhioLINK, 2014. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1397476805.

Tennant, Colette. "Margaret Atwood's transformed and transforming Gothic /." The Ohio State University, 1991. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1487757723997751.

Goode, Aaron T. "American Gothic: A Creative Exploration." University of Dayton / OhioLINK, 2019. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=dayton155653725057493.

White, Troy Nelson. "The Gothic threshold of Sabine Baring-Gould : a study of the Gothic fiction of a Victorian squarson." Thesis, University of Warwick, 2010. http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/35652/.

Etemad, Yousefi Arash. "Medieval Islamic and Gothic architectural drawings : masons, craftsmen and architects." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2005. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/33024.

Vassilieva, Elena. "John Fowles and the Gothic tradition." Thesis, Kingston University, 2004. http://eprints.kingston.ac.uk/21820/.

Kendrick-Alcántara, Carolyn. "Life among the living dead the Gothic horrors of Latin American literature /." Diss., Restricted to subscribing institutions, 2007. http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=1383468231&sid=1&Fmt=2&clientId=1564&RQT=309&VName=PQD.

Strachan, John. "The politics of the Gothic novel 1764-1820." Thesis, University of Oxford, 1991. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.334232.

Rivera, Alexandra. "Human Monsters: Examining the Relationship Between the Posthuman Gothic and Gender in American Gothic Fiction." Scholarship @ Claremont, 2019. https://scholarship.claremont.edu/scripps_theses/1358.

Aspin, Philip. "Architecture and identity in the English Gothic revival 1800-1850." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2013. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.669903.

Shorter, Wendy Ann. "Gothic writing : maintaining the psyche in literature and psychoanalysis." Thesis, University of Kent, 2004. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.408431.

Gadsby-Mace, C. E. "Narrating the nation : Britain in Gothic literature, 1760-1820." Thesis, University of Sheffield, 2016. http://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/17497/.

McKechnie, Claire Charlotte. "Human and the animal in Victorian gothic scientific literature." Thesis, University of Edinburgh, 2011. http://hdl.handle.net/1842/5571.

Lawn, Jennifer. "Trauma and recovery in Janet Frame's fiction." Thesis, National Library of Canada = Bibliothèque nationale du Canada, 1997. http://www.collectionscanada.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk3/ftp04/nq25087.pdf.

Alshatti, Aishah. "Appropriations of the Gothic by Romantic-era women writers." Thesis, Connect to e-thesis, 2008. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/232/.

Levine, Jonathan David. "'One wiser, better, dearer than ourselves' : gothic friendship /." Thesis, Connect to this title online; UW restricted, 2004. http://hdl.handle.net/1773/6643.

Stoddart, Helen. "Constructions of gender and hysteria in the modern Gothic." Thesis, University of Reading, 1991. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.306859.

Stasiak, Lauren Anne. "Victorian professionals, intersubjectivity, and the fin-de-siecle gothic text /." Thesis, Connect to this title online; UW restricted, 2002. http://hdl.handle.net/1773/9491.

Yiannitsaros, Christopher. "Deadly domesticity : Agatha Christie's 'middlebrow' Gothic, 1930-1970." Thesis, University of Warwick, 2016. http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/89292/.

Williams, Anna. "My Gothic dissertation: a podcast." Diss., University of Iowa, 2019. https://ir.uiowa.edu/etd/7046.

Kuhn, W. J. "Edgar Allan Poe and American gothic literature : a historical study." Thesis, University of East Anglia, 1986. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.374261.

Li, Wanlin. "Global Ambiguity in Early American Gothic: A Cultural Rhetorical Analysis." The Ohio State University, 2015. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1433333747.

Springer, Mary Ruth. "American Collegiate Gothic architecture: the birth of a style and its architects, patrons, and educational associations, 1806-1906." Diss., University of Iowa, 2017. https://ir.uiowa.edu/etd/5640.

Pereira, Katia Silva. "The sublime and its different perspective in the gothic literature." Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro, 2015. http://www.bdtd.uerj.br/tde_busca/arquivo.php?codArquivo=9033.

Gothic Literature - Study Guide

Nothing makes you feel more alive than getting a good scare by a horror story! Gothic Fiction has a long history, and remains popular to this day. We hope this guide is particularly useful for teachers and students to explore the genre and read some great stories.

Overview of Gothic Literature , Exemplary Works , Etymology & Historical Context , Quotes , Discussion Questions , Useful Links , and Notes/Teacher Comments

Overview of Gothic Literature

The genre of "Gothic Literature" emerged as the darkest form of Dark Romanticism in its extreme expressions of self-destruction and sin involving sheer terror, personal torment, graphic morbidity, madness, and the supernatural. Put simply, they are stories that scare the bejesus out of you! Edgar Allan Poe wrote some of the finest macabre tales in this genre. Other prominent authors of the genre include Mary Shelley , Bram Stoker , J. Sheridan Le Fanu , H.P. Lovecraft , Philip K. Dick , Algernon Blackwood , Guy de Maupassant , Amelia B. Edwards , M.R. James , Arthur Machen , Elizabeth Gaskell , W.W. Jacobs , W.F. Harvey , and Robert W. Chambers .

Exemplary Works

We offer an exceptional collection of macabre tales: The Gothic, Ghost, Horror & Weird Library

Best Halloween Stories

Both of the above pages offer summaries, the stories and author biographies, so you can find just the right kind of "scary" to suit your mood. See our section of Quotes to get a taste for some lesser known works of gothic fiction you may also enjoy.

Etymology & Historical Context

Originating in England and Germany in the later part of the 18th century, it grew out of Romanticism , a strong reaction against the Transcendental Movement . Dark Romanticism draws from darker elements of the human psyche, the evil side of spiritual truth. Gothic literature took that further, involving horror, terror, death, omens, the supernatural, and heroines in distress. The first recognized Gothic novel was Horace Walpole 's The Castle of Otranto (1764). In the nineteenth century, Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu became a leading author of horror and ghost stories. His female lesbian dracula novel, Carmilla (1872), inspired Bram Stoker 's Dracula (1897).

Because of its superstitious elements, combining history with fiction, intellectuals of the Enlightenment were offended by Gothic literature's "fake" facts. Though some were convinced; reviews from Cambridge were that the book "made some of them cry a little, and all in general afraid to go to bed o' nights." Several authors helped legitimize the genre by imposing realism to give credibility to their fantastic supernatural elements (authors such as Ann Radcliffe and Clara Reeve , whom we do no feature here). Read H.P. Lovecraft 's fascinating book with chapters on the dawn of the horror tale, Poe, and weird traditions in America and the British Isles: Supernatural Horror in Literature .

What made American Gothic Fiction distinctive from European authors? Three words: Edgar Allan Poe . Poe owns the genre; the tragic events of his own lifetime helped him see and write about the world's worst evils. His curiosity with psychological trauma, the supernatural, and experience with mental illness extended a degree of horror that is unparalleled. As Poe wrote in The Tell-Tale Heart : " What you mistake for madness is but over-acuteness of the senses. " While other American authors, including Nathaniel Hawthorne ( The Prophetic Pictures ) and Washington Irving ( The Legend of Sleepy Hollow ), contributed to the genre of gothic fiction, nobody tops Edgar Allan Poe . Not even contemporary horror author, Stephen King , though his diabolical clown story movie remake, It is enjoying a successful resurgence to invigorate the genre once again.

The historical context of Gothic Literature has evolved with the prevailing social, political, and personal events of the authors and their times. Regardless of the context and setting, such as the Salem Witch Trials, the American Revolutionary War, the Vietnam War, the post-Zombie apocalypse, unrequited love (a timeless theme), works of Gothic literature utilize common elements that keep readers coming back for more. Though the genre has come in and out of popularity, authors throughout the ages continue to have an audience for their stories of terror, horror and mysteries of the supernatural.

Explain what the following quotes meaning and why they are exemplars of Gothic Literature:

"It was, indeed, an exquisite symbol beneath which men long ago veiled their knowledge of the most awful, most secret forces which lie at the heart of all things; forces before which the souls of men must wither and die and blacken, as their bodies blacken under the electric current." -- The Great God Pan (chapter 6), Arthur Machen

Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing, Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before; But the silence was unbroken, and the darkness gave no token, And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, `Lenore!' -- The Raven , Edgar Allan Poe

"A shriek of terror, a wild unintelligible cry for help and mercy; burst from my lips as I flung myself against the door, and strove in vain to open it." -- The Phantom Coach , Amelia B. Edwards

"As the gate swung wider and the sorcery of the drug and the dream pushed me through, I knew that all sights and glories were at an end; for in that new realm was neither land nor sea, but only the white void of unpeopled and illimitable space. So, happier than I had ever dared hope to be, I dissolved again into that native infinity of crystal oblivion from which the daemon Life had called me for one brief and desolate hour.” -- Ex Oblivione , H.P. Lovecraft

"The fact that Henry Armstrong was buried did not seem to him to prove that he was dead; he had always been a hard man to convince. That he really was buried, the testimony of his senses compelled him to admit." -- One Summer Night , Ambrose Bierce

"I touched these human remains, which must have belonged to a giant. The uncommonly long fingers were attached by enormous tendons which still had pieces of skin hanging to them in places. This hand was terrible to see; it made one think of some savage vengeance." -- The Hand , Guy de Maupassant

"And terrible fishes to seize my flesh, Such as a living man might fear, And eat me while I am firm and fresh,-- Not wait till I've been dead for a year!" -- Burial , Edna St. Vincent Millay

"I have, indeed, no abhorrence of danger, except in its absolute effect--in terror. In this unnerved-in this pitiable condition--I feel that the period will sooner or later arrive when I must abandon life and reason together, in some struggle with the grim phantasm, FEAR." -- The Fall of the House of Usher , Edgar Allan Poe

"'The sin of witchcraft.' We read about it, we look on it from the outside; but we can hardly realize the terror it induced. Every impulsive or unaccustomed action, every little nervous affection, every ache or pain was noticed, not merely by those around the sufferer, but by the person himself, whoever he might be, that was acting, or being acted upon, in any but the most simple and ordinary manner." -- Lois the Witch , Elizabeth Gaskell

"I perceived myself outside my body-- saw my body near me, but certainly not containing me...I was a great cloud-- if I may express it that way-- anchored to my body. It appeared to me, at first, as if I had discovered a greater self of which the conscious being in my brain was only a little part." -- The Stolen Body , H.G. Wells

"A phantom haunts and hallows the marble tomb or grassy hillock where its material form was laid. Till purified from each stain of clay; till the passions of the living world are all forgotten; till it have less brotherhood with the wayfarers of earth, than with spirits that never wore mortality,—the ghost must linger round the grave. O, it is a long and dreary watch to some of us!" -- Graves and Goblins , Nathaniel Hawthorne

"Veil'd Melancholy has her sovran shrine, Though seen of none save him whose strenuous tongue Can burst Joy's grape against his palate fine; His soul shall taste the sadness of her might, And be among her cloudy trophies hung." -- Ode on Melancholy , John Keats

The tombstone read: "He passed away very suddenly on August 20th, 190- 'In the midst of life we are in death.'" -- August Heat , W.F. Harvey

"Satan has his companions, fellow-devils, to admire and encourage him; but I am solitary and abhorred." -- Frankenstein (chapter 15) by Mary Shelley

Discussion Questions

1. Identify the characteristics of Gothic Literature and examples of work which fit the genre. Identify the different types of "scary" that qualify.

3. Mary E. Wilkins Freeman 's story, Luella Miller . It is about a female vampire who is a parasitic host, consuming her victims with her own dependency, helplessness, and fear. Explain whether you consider it an example of Feminist Literature , in addition to Goth Lit.

5. Identify a modern gothic literature author (e.g., Stephen King , Neil Gaiman , Tim Burton ). Provide examples of their work as evidence of their place in the genre.

6. Explain the use of foreshadowing and elements of suspense in The Monkey's Paw .

8. Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is an allegory for something . Provide textual evidence to support your explanation of one of Stevenson 's moral lessons in the story.

9. What makes a good ghost story? Consider The Old Nurse's Story by Elizabeth Gaskell , who conveys many gothic elements such as a sense that nature is gloomy and demonic, organ music coming out of nowhere, and the ghost of the dead master "wailed and triumphed just like a living creature." What's the moral of the story?

Useful Links

Supernatural Horror in Literature by H.P. Lovecraft

The Rise of Gothic Literature , an overview of its origins and many forms

Luella Miller: A Marxist Feminist Vampire Story

11th Grade Lesson Plan: Six Week Unit Study on Gothic Literature

9th Grade Lesson Plan: Intro to Gothic Literature Through Poe

7th Grade Lesson Plan: Foreshadowing and Morals in "The Monkey's Paw"

Teaching 'Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde'

American Literature Lesson Plans: 19th Century , including Poe, Bierce, Dickinson, Hawthorne

Gods and Monsters: Mythical Creatures, Demons, Vampires, Zombies

'The Nurse's Story' by Elizabeth Gaskell Q&A

Review of 'Lois the Witch' by Elizabeth Gaskell , a great history lesson about the Salem Witch Trials

Modern Gothic vs. Traditional Gothic Literature

Dark Romanticism - Study Guide

Biography and Works by Edgar Allan Poe

Biography and Works by Mary Shelley

Biography and Works by Bram Stoker

Biography and Works by Robert W. Chambers

Biography and Works by H.P. Lovecraft

Biography and Works by Algernon Blackwood

Biography and Works by Amelia B. Edwards

Biography and Works by W.W. Jacobs

Notes/Teacher Comments

Visit our Teacher Resources , supporting literacy instruction across all grade levels

American Literature's Study Guides

Return to American Literature Home Page

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Lifting the veil on history’s best gothic literature.

The tropes are now well-worn. A dark castle, lashed by rain, in which strange sounds echo from hidden rooms. A host whose behavior is both disarming and slightly sinister. The glimmer of something white in a mirror — a ghost, or just a flash of moonlight?

The trappings of Gothic literature might be a tad cliché, but the genre hasn’t lost its allure since it first emerged in 18th-century Britain. That’s because those rather campy hauntings and eerie manors are just a means to explore a much more intriguing mystery: the nature of reality itself.

Gothic literature arose in part as a reaction to the Enlightenment, which was then reframing the world through objective science and rationality, says Margaret Russett , professor of English at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences. In response, many writers became interested in things that couldn’t be so easily explained away, like the supernatural or the churning, irrational minds of humans.

“It was the beginning of an exploration of what we would now call ‘the unconscious,’” says Russett, an expert in Gothic literature who provides some suggestions for readers who wish to dig into the genre. “It was about testing reality, and the ways that reality can fool you.”

The Castle of Otranto (1764) by Horace Walpole

Walpole made a few other key creative decisions that shaped the genre: He set his story in the past, the 12th century, and on the European continent, which the British then regarded as civilization’s last frontier.

“In France or Italy, you could have your heroines plausibly kidnapped and immured in a dungeon. Those kinds of things weren’t thought to happen in England in the late 18th century, but outside of Britain, and in an earlier time period, anything could happen,” says Russett. Gothic tales could thus indulge in wild behavior and events that the modernizing “Age of Reason” was busily doing away with.

The book was subtitled “a Gothic story” in reference to the medieval setting and its Gothic style castle. Later critics applied the label to other literary works that resembled Walpole’s, although these early writers never actually used the term themselves.

The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794) by Ann Radcliffe

“How many women were actually imprisoned by their husbands and fed on bread and water in the late 18th century? Probably not that many. How many felt imprisoned in their domestic situation or that their freedoms were radically circumscribed? Lots and lots, probably. The Gothic novel gave them a way to explore these anxieties,” says Russett.

Perhaps the most influential female Gothic writer was Ann Radcliffe. Her four-volume The Mysteries of Udolpho , which details the fate of the orphaned Emily St. Aubert who gets locked in a castle by an Italian count, drew thousands of eager readers and sparked generations of imitators.

Radcliffe, and those she inspired, weren’t just interested in depicting female victimhood. “These novels are explorations of both freedom and oppression: How does a woman negotiate her way out of a situation in which her rights are being abrogated? They’re a mode in which female characters can be heroes,” says Russett.

Northanger Abbey (1817) by Jane Austen

Like most parodies, the story also ended up codifying the key elements of the genre it was sending up, says Russett. A naïve yet plucky female heroine? Check. An older male villain with sinister designs? Check. A romantic interest who’s a little on the ineffectual side? Check.

Jane Eyre (1847) by Charlotte Bronte

“In Jane Eyre , for example, the heroine appears to be very self-contained and restrained, prudish even, but inside, there’s this riot of passionate emotion going on,” says Russett.

The sisters grew up reading Radcliffe as well as the Romantic poets, for whom the natural world was a source of potent inspiration, explains Russet. “The Brontes’ work is a synthesis, in some ways, of both the Romantic interest in landscape, self-expression, imagination and also the Gothic themes of imprisonment and escape,” she says.

Beloved ( 1987) by Toni Morrison

In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s classic Young Goodman Brown , a strange vision of a witch’s Sabbath sends the main character into a spiral of paranoia and self-isolation. Herman Melville, himself a devoted fan of Hawthorne, penned a now famous tale haunted by an inscrutable, ghostly whale.

Morrison’s Beloved , in which a malevolent, vampiric spirit torments a family of former slaves, won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1988. Published more than 200 years after Walpole set the Gothic into motion, it’s a demonstration of the genre’s enduring power to illuminate the darkest corners of our reality.

Extra Credit

Looking for something a little more specific? Try these titles:

Blood and guts Gothic: The Monk (1796) by Matthew Lewis includes a murderous monk and cross-dressing clerics.

For fang fans: Sheridan Le Fanu’s Carmilla (1872) features the first female vampire.

Feminist Gothic: First Love: A Gothic Tale (1996) by Joyce Carol Oates. “It’s an exploration, not just of individual male villains, but also of patriarchy,” says Russett.

Thrills on film: The Shining (1977) by Stephen King swaps morose castle for haunted resort hotel and its later film treatment put the Gothic on celluloid.

Psychological thrills: One of Russett’s favorites, The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner (1824) by James Hogg tells the same story twice, once from the perspective of its delusional protagonist, and again from the perhaps-as-delusional perspective of an enlightened editor.

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dissertation on gothic literature

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English Dissertations and Theses

The English Department Dissertations and Theses Series is comprised of dissertations and thesis authored by Marquette University's English Department doctoral and master's students.

Theses/Dissertations from 2023 2023

Lifting the Postmodern Veil: Cosmopolitanism, Humanism, and Decolonization in Global Fictions of the 21st Century , Matthew Burchanoski

Gothic Transformations and Remediations in Cheap Nineteenth-Century Fiction , Wendy Fall

Milton’s Learning: Complementarity and Difference in Paradise Lost , Peter Spaulding

“The Development of the Conceptive Plot Through Early 19th-Century English Novels” , Jannea R. Thomason

Theses/Dissertations from 2022 2022

Gonzo Eternal , John Francis Brick

Intertextuality and Sociopolitical Engagement in Contemporary Anglophone Women’s Writing , Jackielee Derks

Innovation, Genre, and Authenticity in the Nineteenth-Century Irish Novel , David Aiden Kenney II

Reluctant Sons: The Irish Matrilineal Tradition of Oscar Wilde, James Joyce, and Flann O’Brien , Jessie Wirkus Haynes

Britain's Extraterrestrial Empire: Colonial Ambition, Anxiety, and Ambivalence in Early Modern Literature , Mark Edward Wisniewski

Theses/Dissertations from 2021 2021

Re-Reading the “Culture Clash”: Alternative Ways of Reading in Indian Horse , Hailey Whetten

Theses/Dissertations from 2020 2020

When the Foreign Became Familiar: Modernism, Expatriation, and Spatial Identities in the Twentieth Century , Danielle Kristene Clapham

Reforming Victorian Sense/Abilities: Disabilities in Elizabeth Gaskell’s Social Problem Novels , Hunter Nicole Duncan

Genre and Loss: The Impossibility of Restoration in 20th Century Detective Fiction , Kathryn Hendrickson

A Productive Failure: Existentialism in Fin de Siècle England , Maxwell Patchet

Inquiry and Provocation: The Use of Ambiguity in Sixteenth-Century English Political Satire , Jason James Zirbel

Theses/Dissertations from 2019 2019

No Home but the World: Forced Migration and Transnational Identity , Justice Hagan

The City As a Trap: 20th and 21st Century American Literature and the American Myth of Mobility , Andrew Joseph Hoffmann

The Fantastic and the First World War , Brian Kenna

Insane in the Brain, Blood, and Lungs: Gender-Specific Manifestations of Hysteria, Chlorosis, & Consumption in 19th-Century Literature , Anna P. Scanlon

Reading Multicultural Novels Melancholically: Racial Grief and Grievance in the Joy Luck Club, Beloved, and Anil's Ghost , Jennifer Arias Sweeney

Theses/Dissertations from 2018 2018

The Ethos of Dissent: Epideictic Rhetoric and the Democratic Function of American Protest and Countercultural Literature , Jeffrey Lorino Jr

Literary Cosmopolitanisms of Salman Rushdie, Amitav Ghosh, and Arundhati Roy , Sunil Samuel Macwan

The View from Here: Toward a Sissy Critique , Tyler Monson

The Forbidden Zone Writers: Femininity and Anglophone Women War Writers of the Great War , Sareene Proodian

Theatrical Weddings and Pious Frauds: Performance and Law in Victorian Marriage Plots , Adrianne A. Wojcik

Theses/Dissertations from 2016 2016

Changing the Victorian Habit Loop: The Body in the Poetry and Painting of Dante Gabriel Rossetti and William Morris , Bryan Gast

Gendering Scientific Discourse from 1790-1830: Erasmus Darwin, Thomas Beddoes, Maria Edgeworth, and Jane Marcet , Bridget E. Kapler

Discarding Dreams and Legends: The Short Fiction of Elizabeth Madox Roberts, Flannery O’Connor, Katherine Anne Porter, and Eudora Welty , Katy L. Leedy

Theses/Dissertations from 2015 2015

Saving the Grotesque: The Grotesque System of Liberation in British Modernism (1922-1932) , Matthew Henningsen

The Pulpit's Muse: Conversive Poetics in the American Renaissance , Michael William Keller

A Single Man of Good Fortune: Postmodern Identities and Consumerism in the New Novel of Manners , Bonnie McLean

Julian of Norwich: Voicing the Vernacular , Therese Elaine Novotny

Theses/Dissertations from 2014 2014

Homecomings: Victorian British Women Travel Writers And Revisions Of Domesticity , Emily Paige Blaser

From Pastorals to Paterson: Ecology in the Poetry and Poetics of William Carlos WIlliams , Daniel Edmund Burke

Argument in Poetry: (Re)Defining the Middle English Debate in Academic, Popular, and Physical Contexts , Kathleen R. Burt

Apocalyptic Mentalities in Late-Medieval England , Steven A. Hackbarth

The Creation of Heaven in the Middle Ages , William Storm

(re)making The Gentleman: Genteel Masculinities And The Country Estate In The Novels Of Charlotte Smith, Jane Austen, And Elizabeth Gaskell , Shaunna Kay Wilkinson

Theses/Dissertations from 2013 2013

Brides, Department Stores, Westerns, and Scrapbooks--The Everyday Lives of Teenage Girls in the 1940s , Carly Anger

Placed People: Rootedness in G. K. Chesterton, C. S. Lewis, and Wendell Berry , David Harden

Rhetorics Of Girlhood Trauma In Writing By Holly Goddard Jones, Joyce Carol Oates, Sandra Cisneros, And Jamaica Kincaid , Stephanie Marie Stella

Theses/Dissertations from 2012 2012

A Victorian Christmas in Hell: Yuletide Ghosts and Necessary Pleasures in the Age of Capital , Brandon Chitwood

"Be-Holde the First Acte of this Tragedy" : Generic Symbiosis and Cross-Pollination in Jacobean Drama and the Early Modern Prose Novella , Karen Ann Zyck Galbraith

Pamela: Or, Virtue Reworded: The Texts, Paratexts, and Revisions that Redefine Samuel Richardson's Pamela , Jarrod Hurlbert

Violence and Masculinity in American Fiction, 1950-1975 , Magdalen McKinley

Gender Politics in the Novels of Eliza Haywood , Susan Muse

Destabilizing Tradition: Gender, Sexuality, and Postnational Identity in Four Novels by Irish Women, 1960-2000 , Sarah Nestor

Truth Telling: Testimony and Evidence in the Novels of Elizabeth Gaskell , Rebecca Parker Fedewa

Spirit of the Psyche: Carl Jung's and Victor White's Influence on Flannery O'Connor's Fiction , Paul Wakeman

Theses/Dissertations from 2011 2011

Performing the Audience: Constructing Playgoing in Early Modern Drama , Eric Dunnum

Paule Marshall's Critique of Contemporary Neo-Imperialisms Through the Trope of Travel , Michelle Miesen Felix

Hermeneutics, Poetry, and Spenser: Augustinian Exegesis and the Renaissance Epic , Denna Iammarino-Falhamer

Encompassing the Intolerable: Laughter, Memory, and Inscription in the Fiction of John McGahern , John Keegan Malloy

Regional Consciousness in American Literature, 1860-1930 , Kelsey Louise Squire

The Ethics of Ekphrasis: The Turn to Responsible Rhetoric in Mid-Twentieth Century American Poetry , Joshua Scott Steffey

Theses/Dissertations from 2010 2010

Cognitive Architectures: Structures of Passion in Joanna Baillie's Dramas , Daniel James Bergen

On Trial: Restorative Justice in the Godwin-Wollstonecraft-Shelley Family Fictions , Colleen M. Fenno

Theses/Dissertations from 2009 2009

What's the point to eschatology : multiple religions and terminality in James Joyce's Finnegans wake , Martin R. Brick

Economizing Characters: Harriet Martineau and the Problems of Poverty in Victorian Literature, Culture and Law , Mary Colleen Willenbring

Submissions from 2008 2008

"An improbable fiction": The marriage of history and romance in Shakespeare's Henriad , Marcia Eppich-Harris

Bearing the Mark of the Social: Notes Towards a Cosmopolitan Bildungsroman , Megan M. Muthupandiyan

The Gothic Novel and the Invention of the Middle-Class Reader: Northanger Abbey As Case Study , Tenille Nowak

Not Just a Novel of Epic Proportions: Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man As Modern American Epic , Dana Edwards Prodoehl

Recovering the Radicals: Women Writers, Reform, and Nationalist Modes of Revolutionary Discourse , Mark J. Zunac

Theses/Dissertations from 2007 2007

"The Sweet and the Bitter": Death and Dying in J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings , Amy M. Amendt-Raduege

The Games Men Play: Madness and Masculinity in Post-World War II American Fiction, 1946-1964 , Thomas P. Durkin

Denise Levertov: Through An Ecofeminist Lens , Katherine A. Hanson

The Wit of Wrestling: Devotional-Aesthetic Tradition in Christina Rossetti's Poetry , Maria M.E. Keaton

Genderless Bodies: Stigma and the Myth of Womanhood , Ellen M. Letizia

Envy and Jealousy in the Novels of the Brontës: A Synoptic Discernment , Margaret Ann McCann

Technologies of the Late Medieval Self: Ineffability, Distance, and Subjectivity in the Book of Margery Kempe , Crystal L. Mueller

"Finding-- a Map-- to That Place Called Home": The Journey from Silence to Recovery in Patrick McCabe's Carn and Breakfast on Pluto , Valerie A. Murrenus Pilmaier

Emily Dickinson's Ecocentric Pastoralism , Moon-ju Shin

The American Jeremiad in Civil War Literature , Jacob Hadley Stratman

Theses/Dissertations from 2006 2006

Literary Art in Times of Crisis: The Proto-Totalitarian Anxiety of Melville, James, and Twain , Matthew J. Darling

(Re) Writing Genre: Narrative Conventions and Race in the Novels of Toni Morrison , Jennifer Lee Jordan Heinert

"Amsolookly Kersse": Clothing in Finnegan's Wake , Catherine Simpson Kalish

"Do Your Will": Shakespeare's Use of the Rhetoric of Seduction in Four Plays , Jason James Nado

Woman in Emblem: Locating Authority in the Work and Identity of Katherine Philips (1632-1664) , Susan L. Stafinbil

When the Bough Breaks: Poetry on Abortion , Wendy A. Weaver

Theses/Dissertations from 2005 2005

Heroic Destruction: Shame and Guilt Cultures in Medieval Heroic Poetry , Karl E. Boehler

Poe and Early (Un)American Drama , Amy C. Branam

Grammars of Assent: Constructing Poetic Authority in An Age of Science , William Myles Carroll III

This Place is Not a Place: The Constructed Scene in the Works of Sir Walter Scott , Colin J. Marlaire

Cognitive Narratology: A Practical Approach to the Reader-Writer Relationship , Debra Ann Ripley

Theses/Dissertations from 2004 2004

Defoe and the Pirates: Function of Genre Conventions in Raiding Narratives , William J. Dezoma

Creative Discourse in the Eighteenth-Century Courtship Novel , Michelle Ruggaber Dougherty

Exclusionary Politics: Mourning and Modernism in the Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Amy Levy, and Charlotte Mew , Donna Decker Schuster

Theses/Dissertations from 2003 2003

Toward a Re-Formed Confession: Johann Gerhard's Sacred Meditations and "Repining Restlessnesse" in the Poetry of George Herbert , Erik P. Ankerberg

Idiographic Spaces: Representation, Ideology and Realism in the Postmodern British Novel , Gordon B. McConnell

Theses/Dissertations from 2002 2002

Reading into It: Wallace Stegner's Novelistic Sense of Time and Place , Colin C. Irvine

Brisbane and Beyond: Revising Social Capitalism in Mid-Nineteenth-Century America , Michael C. Mattek

Theses/Dissertations from 2001 2001

Christians and Mimics in W. B. Yeats' Collected Poems , Patrick Mulrooney

Renaissance Roles and the Process of Social Change , John Wieland

'Straunge Disguize': Allegory and Its Discontents in Spenser's Faerie Queene , Galina Ivanovna Yermolenko

Theses/Dissertations from 2000 2000

Reading American Women's Autobiography: Spheres of Identity, Spheres of Influence , Amy C. Getty

"Making Strange": The Art and Science of Selfhood in the Works of John Banville , Heather Maureen Moran

Writing Guadalupe: Mediacion and (mis)translation in borderland text(o)s , Jenny T Olin-Shanahan

Writing Guadalupe: Mediacion and (Mis)Translation in Borderland Text(o)s , Jenny T. Olin-Shanahan

Theses/Dissertations from 1999 1999

Setting the Word Against the Word: The Search for Self-Understanding in Richard II , Richard J. Erable

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The Spirit Of Gothic: The Gothic Revival House In Nineteenth-century America.

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Department of English » Gothic Studies » PhD Study in the Gothic

We provide doctoral supervision on all aspects of the Gothic, from the eighteenth century to the present day, and across disciplines, especially literature, film, television and video games. We also supervise dissertations in Gothic Creative Writing. You can browse through our specialist staff profiles for areas of expertise here .

If you would like to undertake PhD study in the Gothic, it is possible to apply for funding through the AHRC consortium for the North West. Details can be found on the North West Consortium Doctoral Training Partnership website .

For Gothic-specific queries, please e-mail us here . For general PhD application queries, please e-mail Dr Andrew Moor here .

Our Current Students And Their Projects

Rebecca alaise, ‘gothic soundscapes of the long nineteenth century: ethereal instruments and the divine voice’ (2020-).

This project explores the singing voice as a site from which a variety of gothic transgressions emanate, examining how interactions between literary representation and interpretation enhance gothic music’s alterity and amplify vocal uncanniness. This study considers the ways gothicists from the 1820s to the fin de siècle used sonic dissonance to subvert the celestial wholesomeness of ‘divine’ vocality through the corporeality of operatic Divas and musical virtuosos, as well as choristers and monks, allowing wider scrutiny of sonic gothic motifs. 

Contact Rebecca

Fredrik Blanc, ‘“In Deep Waters”: Thalassophobia and Oceanic Transcorporealities in Modern and Contemporary Weird Fiction’ (2019-)

Fredrik’s thesis explores the materiality of the sea as a Weird space and ontology. Focussing on sea monsters and hybrids as representational intermediaries between human and other-than-human agencies in the oceanic context, he aims to investigate and re-evaluate literary and cultural discourses surrounding the sea, from evolutionary controversies of the nineteenth century to the ecological crises of the present day.

Contact Fred

Katherine Anne Burn, 'The Shame(d) Subject: Reading the Phenomenology of Shame and Temporality in Contemporary British Fiction' (AHRC NWCDTP award, 2017-2020

Contemporary British fiction reveals a topography of cultural and elemental anxiety. Turbulent landscapes frame experimental narratives that seek to recalibrate the self in this newly emerging period of post-postmodernism. My thesis investigates the relationship between phenomenological shame and time, and ultimately, its effect on the ontology of the subject.

Contact Katherine

Hayley Louise Charlesworth, ‘Depraved’ Bisexuals: Biphobia and Bi-Erasure in Post-Millennial Gothic Television (2018-)

Hayley’s thesis combines studies in queer theory, television studies and the gothic to examine issues of biphobia and bi-erasure in post-millennial gothic television. In particular, this research identifies a trend of problematic depictions of bisexuality within the gothic, and questions why the transgressive, binary-rejecting nature of bisexuality has been overlooked in queer gothic studies. Hayley previously won Manchester Metropolitan University’s Outstanding Academic Achievement Prize, is a contributing guest speaker for Romancing the Gothic, and is one of the organisers of the Absent Presences project.

Contact Hayley

Alice Durocher, ‘Gothic Cities: Manchester, Edinburgh and Paris in Contemporary Literature and the Cultural Imagination’ (2021-)

Manchester, Edinburgh and Paris are often represented as gothicised cities. This thesis uses transcultural and hauntological theories and applies them to the urban space to analyse the gothicisation of these cities from the nineteenth century onwards. I argue that gothic attractions, which flourish in these cities, bring new significance to the gothicisation of the urban space.

Contact Alice

Kerry Gorrill, 'MUTATING MANORS MAKYTH THE MAN: Men and Domestic Space in American Gothic Narratives' (2018)

Kerry's area of interest is the relationship between the masculine subject and domestic space in American Gothic literature. In particular, her thesis explores the ways in which American Gothic frequently generates a particularly schizophrenic and fragile male subject whose presence in domestic space seems to force that space to come to life, mutate and interact with the subject in order to bring about his death or ejection.

Contact Kerry

Charlotte Gough, ‘In the Devil We Trust: Masculine Trauma and Satanic Panic in American Gothic Film’ (AHRC NWCDTP Award, 2018-)

Charlotte’s thesis examines a notable trend in America Gothic cinema of the 1980s and 1990s that engages with the ‘Satanic Panic’, a contextual phenomenon of widespread occult hysteria in the US. Drawing upon psychoanalysis, gender theory and American political studies, the project identifies this trend’s distinct relationship to, and representation of, toxic masculinity and national identity that defined this period. Such that is now being retroactively echoed by the political landscape and, similarly Satanic, popular screen culture of the Trump administration. Charlotte has previously been published in  The Irish Journal of Gothic and Horror Studies  and  Fantastika Journal .

Twitter: @CharGough7

Contact Charlotte

David Griffiths, ‘A Writer’s Investigation into Method and Gendering in Paranormal Young Adult Fiction’ (2019-)

David is writing a Young Adult novel,  How to Draw Ghosts . His thesis also traces narrative patterns and tropes across a range of contemporary paranormal fiction aimed at Young Adult audiences, covering the period from 1970 to the present day. He evaluates existing techniques for engaging YA audiences with supernatural and paranormal themes and is building on these to develop new storytelling techniques.

Contact David

Esther Hudson, ‘The Song of the Banshee: Voicing the Other in Historical Gothic Fiction’ (2020-)

Esther is writing a ‘crossover’ historical-gothic novel, told from the dual perspectives of an Irish banshee, and a young woman growing up in Dublin during the period 1916-22, who becomes embroiled in the Irish Rebellion. The novel explores a post-colonial reading of Anglo-Irish history and her critical work investigates how writers can give voice to ‘mute’ figures of history and myth.

Contact Esther

Kirsten Kasai, ‘The Cycle: Creative-Critical Exploration of the Veneration and Vilification of Witchcraft’ (2021-)

Kirsten is writing two complementary texts (a novel and a critical thesis) that explore archetypal representations of witches and witchcraft, and of their supernatural power by examining witches in relation to biological, female reproductive cycles. She addresses the cultural uses of the witch as a scapegoat, and how accusations of witchcraft and the persecution of the accused have been historically employed to sustain and reinforce economic, political, and sexual domination.

Contact Kirsten

Karmel Knipprath, ‘‘Always, worlds within worlds’: Clive Barker’s Transmedial Gothic, 1978-Present’ (2022-)

Karmel’s research identifies British-born polymath, Clive Barker, as an important yet significantly undertheorized figure in the field of Gothic Studies. Her thesis argues that Barker’s unconventional and sophisticated use of the Gothic has allowed him to successfully advance, expand, and, at times, completely reconfigure the formal, aesthetic, and political limitations of multiple media, including theatre, literature, film, and the plastic arts, across a four-decade career. 

Contact Karmel

James McCrae: ‘A Cultural History of the Animated Skeleton, 1700–1900’ (2019-).

James’s thesis seeks to provide a cultural history of the animated skeleton in British culture of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Interdisciplinary in its approach, it seeks to enrich recent scholarship on the relationship between Gothic and death with insights gleaned from the history of funerary architecture and internment.

Contact James

Luke Moloney, Hybrid Geographies: Ecocritical Horror in Contemporary Science Fiction, 1998–2020' (2020-)

Luke’s thesis focuses on contemporary science fiction, demonstrating its engagement with ecological anxiety and anthropocentric modalities through its incorporation of the horrific. Their work aims to demonstrate the value of considering generic hybridity through an eco-critical lens, revealing transgressive and radical potentialities for living with, and through, the Anthropocene.  

Contact Luke

Matteo Polato, ‘The Role of Resonance-based Processes in the Emergence of Experiences of the Supernatural. (2019-)

Matteo’s research focuses on the study of supernatural experiences, exploring how notions of sound, vibration and resonance intervene in the sensation of the eerie. He is seeking a novel epistemological and methodological approach to highlight the mutual relationship between the material-affective and the cultural-discursive dimensions within those processual and performative dynamics, that pave the way for the possibility of the supernatural.

Contact Matteo  

Leonie Rowland, ‘Commodity Animism in the Japanese Gothic’ (AHRC NWCDTP Award, 2021-)

Leonie is researching Japanese Gothic depictions of commodity animism—that is, the symbolic animation of the material world in a commercial context. This marketing technique, emerging from the intersection of capitalist materiality and indigenous spirituality, provides a vehicle for the Gothic expression of alternative forms of horror that expose rather than reinforce the harm enacted by a socioeconomic system that desecrates the spiritual.

Contact: Leonie

Twitter: @leonie_rowland

Ali Shannan, ‘Middle Eastern Gothic Literature’ (2021-)

Ali’s thesis focuses on middle eastern gothic literature and how far this has moulded our understanding of rising hostile western attitudes towards the orient. Approaching these issues through geopolitics, the aim is to assess the postcolonial struggles through gothic texts and films, exploring how these conflicts have often represented or misrepresented events and how far this influenced our perspective of the middle east and all that it hides.

Contact Ali

Rob Sutton, ‘“We wonder how they think so soundly and speak so well”: Anne Grant and the Gaelic Rejection of Gothic Enlightenment’ (2018-)

Rob’s research aims to recuperate the writing of the nineteenth-century Scottish writer Anne MacVicar Grant. It diverges from existing scholarly criticism in that, rather than interpreting Grant as politically and culturally ambiguous, it proposes Grant’s fixed adherence to a Jacobite political and cultural ethos. His research explores how Grant’s commitment to the Gaelic origins of the Scottish people conflicted with contemporary notions of Scotland’s Gothic origins.

Contact Rob 

Isobelle Whinnettt, ‘Queer Female Voices in Gothic and Fantasy Contemporary Young Adult Fiction’ (2020-)

Isobelle’s thesis investigates novels published at the intersection of contemporary queer YA and Gothic Fantasy, evaluating common literary tropes and techniques. Her creative work, the novel ‘We Build Our Girls Grieving’, adds to this body of fiction a Gothic Fantasy novel with a queer female ensemble cast. As a queer female writer, Isobelle’s brings fresh insights to critical and creative work in this area and advocates for positive representation in genre fiction.

Contact Isobelle

Maartje Weenink, ’10 – 6 = 4, “king” – “man” = ‘”queen”: A Computational Approach to the representations of European National Identities in the British Gothic Novel “Genre” Using Word-Embeddings’ (2018-)

Maartje aims to create a large corpus of annotated late eighteenth- and early nineteenth century British Gothic fiction to computationally uncover trends in (the representation of European national characters and settings in) Gothic fiction using word-embeddings. This corpus will enable a quantitative approach towards comparing different sub-categories of the Gothic by relating the texts and their meta-data to the socio-historic contexts in which they were produced. 

Contact Maartje

Previously Completed Theses

• Dr Teresa Fitzpatrick, ‘Killer Plants & Gothic Gardeners: Gendered Eco-Monsters of The Gothic from 1890-2015’(2022)
• Dr Oliver Rendle, ‘Live. Laugh. Loathe.’: Cosmic Humour and Contemporary Pessimism in Literature and on Screen (1969-2019)’ (2022)
• Dr Rebecca Wynne-Walsh, ‘Basque Gothic Cinema (1990-2021): A Regionalist Challenge to the Spanish Model of National Cinematic Production and Cultural Identity’ (2022)
• Dr Alicia Edwards, ‘“There Are Things Going Bump in the Night All Over This Town”: Gothic Tourism, Haunted London, and the Geographies of Haunted Space’ (2021)
• Dr Heather O. Petrocelli, ‘Horror Film and the Queer Spectator: An Empirical Study of the Spectatorial Relationships between Queerness, Genre, and Drag Performance’ (2021)
• Dr Keith O’Sullivan, ‘“Somewhere I Had to Go”: The Postmodernist and Posthumanist Gothic Transmutations of Ramsey Campbell’s Longer Fictions, 1981—2016' (2021)
• Dr Nicole Dittmer, ‘Wilderness and Female “Monstrosity”: A Material Ecofeminist Reading of Victorian Gothic Fiction’ (2021)
• Dr Robyn Ollett, ‘Queer Lives through Dead Eyes: Observing the New Queer Gothic’ (2020)
• Dr Ian Murphy, ‘Art, Androgyny and the Femme Fatale in Decadent Fictions of the Nineteenth century’ (2020)
• Dr Andreea Ros, ‘“The Haunting Memory of Contagions”: Infectious Narratives and Crisis in Liberal Biopolitics' (2019)
• Dr Holly Hirst, 'The Theology of the Early British Gothic: 1760-1830' (2019)
• Dr Rachid M'Rabty, 'Beyond Transgression: Violence, Nihilism and Neoliberalism in Contemporary Self-Destructive Fiction' (2019)
• Dr Jonathan Greenaway, Language of the Sacred: The Nineteenth Century Gothic Novel and Imaginative Apologetics (2018)
• Dr Richard Gough Thomas, Scepticism and Experience in the Educational Writing of William Godwin (2015)
• Dr Jason Crellin, Schizo-Gothic Subjectivity: H.P. Lovecraft and Williams S. Burroughs (2014)
• Dr Mary Jane Ainsley, Contemporary Thai Horror Film: A Monstrous Hybrid (2012)
• Dr Zoe Lambert, When I Get Home: A Collection of Short Stories and Accompanying Critical Commentary (2010)
• Dr Gail Ashurst, In the Footsteps of The Wicker Man: Personal Mythopoesis and the Processes of Cult Film Fandom (2009)

PhD Development

In recognition of the growing number of Gothic postgraduate researchers at Manchester Met and in the North West, the Gothic Centre has thus far hosted two postgraduate-focused development days.

The Gothic Networking Day ran on the 12th of July 2014 and gave postgraduate researchers a unique opportunity to learn about Gothic Studies in the United Kingdom. The day included talks from the co-president of the International Gothic Association, the editor of the journal Gothic Studies, the editors of The Irish Journal of Gothic and Horror Studies, the commissioning editor of the Gothic Studies book series at the University of Wales Press, education professionals and representatives from Twisted Tales and Grimmfest Film Festival. The event was supported by the  Higher Education Academy  and was reviewed positively reviewed by the  The Gothic Imagination website .

The second of these days, the ‘Gothic Studies Postgraduate Training Day’, was held in June 2017. This was an opportunity to share information about presenting at conferences, writing for journals and networking. A plenary was given by Dr Emma McEvoy (University of Westminster) on Gothic Sound in Ann Radcliffe’s fiction.

In 2019, our PGR cohort organised Absent Presences: Shifting the Core and Peripheries of the Gothic Mode (27-28 June), a two-day conference inspired by their research.

In 2021, our PGR cohort organised the Gothic Approaches webinars to showcase their current work. The series is available to watch on YouTube .

Transgressive Nature Of Women In Gothic Literature

More about transgressive nature of women in gothic literature.

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Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'English Gothic revival (Literature) Gothic novel'

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Consult the top 32 dissertations / theses for your research on the topic 'English Gothic revival (Literature) Gothic novel.'

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Wright, Angela. "The claustral gaze : visions of imprisonment in the gothic novel and French melodrama." Thesis, University of Aberdeen, 2002. http://digitool.abdn.ac.uk:80/webclient/DeliveryManager?pid=158599.

Goss, Sarah Judith. "The agony of consciousness : history and memory in nineteenth-century Irish gothic novels /." view abstract or download file of text, 2003. http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/uoregon/fullcit?p3102166.

Shlyak, Tatyana. "Secret as a key to narration : evolution from English Gothic to the Gothic in Dostoyevsky /." Thesis, Connect to this title online; UW restricted, 2004. http://hdl.handle.net/1773/6667.

Levine, Jonathan David. "'One wiser, better, dearer than ourselves' : gothic friendship /." Thesis, Connect to this title online; UW restricted, 2004. http://hdl.handle.net/1773/6643.

Wozniak, Heather Anne. "Brilliant gloom the contradictions of British gothic drama, 1768-1823 /." Diss., Restricted to subscribing institutions, 2008. http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=1692743101&sid=1&Fmt=2&clientId=1564&RQT=309&VName=PQD.

Denison, Sheri Ann. "Walking through the shadows ruins, reflections, and resistance in the postcolonial Gothic novel /." Open access to IUP's electronic theses and dissertations, 2009. http://hdl.handle.net/2069/160.

Stasiak, Lauren Anne. "Victorian professionals, intersubjectivity, and the fin-de-siecle gothic text /." Thesis, Connect to this title online; UW restricted, 2002. http://hdl.handle.net/1773/9491.

Foulds, Alexandra Laura. "Gothic monster fiction and the 'novel-reading disease', 1860-1900." Thesis, University of Glasgow, 2018. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/30684/.

Hilton, Laura Jayne. "The Gothic double in the contemporary graphic novel." Thesis, University of Birmingham, 2011. http://etheses.bham.ac.uk//id/eprint/928/.

Kulperger, Shelley. "Disorienting geographies, unsettled bodies : Anglo-Canadian female Gothic / by Shelley Kulperger." [St. Lucia, Qld.], 2004. http://www.library.uq.edu.au/pdfserve.php?image=thesisabs/absthe18401.pdf.

Huang, Cherry. "Jane Austen's attitudes towards the 'masculine' and 'feminine' Gothic in Northanger Abbey (1818)." Thesis, University of Macau, 2012. http://umaclib3.umac.mo/record=b2586642.

Behr, Kate E. "The perfect gentleman : the representation of men in the English Gothic novel, 1762-1820." Thesis, University of Oxford, 1993. https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:57c69640-90ab-4b4e-87a9-5f0c42e649f0.

Spear, Peta. "Libertine : a novel & A writer's reflection : the Libertine dynamic : existential erotic and apocalyptic Gothic /." View thesis, 1998. http://library.uws.edu.au/adt-NUWS/public/adt-NUWS20030909.143230/index.html.

West, Melissa Ann. "Hauntings in the church counterfeit Christianity through the fin de siécle Gothic novel /." Lynchburg, Va. : Liberty University, 2009. http://digitalcommons.liberty.edu.

Saggini, Francesca. "The transforming muses : stage appropriations of the Gothic novel in the 1790s." Thesis, University of Glasgow, 2009. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/1473/.

Hewitt, Natalie A. ""Something old and dark has got its way": Shakespeare's Influence in the Gothic Literary Tradition." Scholarship @ Claremont, 2013. http://scholarship.claremont.edu/cgu_etd/77.

Mighall, Robert. "The brigand in the laboratory : a study of the discursive exchange between Gothic fiction and nineteenth-century medico-legal science." Thesis, University of Wales Trinity Saint David, 1994. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.683119.

Lawrence, Jennifer Thomson. "The Third Person in the Room: Servants and the Construction of Identity in the Eighteenth-Century Gothic Novel." unrestricted, 2008. http://etd.gsu.edu/theses/available/etd-04172008-130053/.

Gao, Dodo Yun. "Terror' and 'horror' in the 'masculine' and 'feminine' Gothic : Matthew Lewis's The Monk ( 1796) and Ann Radcliffe's The Italian (1797)." Thesis, University of Macau, 2012. http://umaclib3.umac.mo/record=b2586630.

Wu, He Fang. "Fear and pity in the Castle of Otranto." Thesis, University of Macau, 2012. http://umaclib3.umac.mo/record=b2586641.

Antone, Margaret K. "The mutual development in James, Henry, and Jane Austen's early writings." Cleveland, Ohio : Cleveland State University, 2010. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=csu1274402437.

Prungnaud, Joëlle. "Gothique et décadence recherches sur la continuité d'un mythe et d'un genre au XIXe siècle en Grande-Bretagne et en France /." Paris : H. Champion, 1997. http://catalog.hathitrust.org/api/volumes/oclc/37815430.html.

Williams, Eleanor. "The Divine and Miss Johanna." Ohio : Ohio University, 2006. http://www.ohiolink.edu/etd/view.cgi?ohiou1145555978.

Alegrette, Alessandro Yuri. "Frankenstein : uma releitura do mito de criação /." Araraquara : [s.n.], 2010. http://hdl.handle.net/11449/91524.

Woo, Chimi. "Cross-Cultural Encounter And The Novel: Nation, Identity, And Genre In Nineteenth-Century British Literature." Columbus, Ohio : Ohio State University, 2008. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc%5Fnum=osu1204725332.

Alegrette, Alessandro Yuri [UNESP]. "Frankenstein: uma releitura do mito de criação." Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP), 2010. http://hdl.handle.net/11449/91524.

Bufalari, Fernando Moreira. "O romance de sensação: um estudo sobre The Woman in White." Universidade de São Paulo, 2018. http://www.teses.usp.br/teses/disponiveis/8/8147/tde-25092018-152500/.

Koonce, Elizabeth Godke. "SENSATION FICTION AND THE LAW: DANGEROUS ALTERNATIVE SOCIAL TEXTS AND CULTURAL REVOLUTION IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY BRITAIN." Ohio : Ohio University, 2006. http://www.ohiolink.edu/etd/view.cgi?ohiou1155670056.

Santos, Camila de Mello. "Representações da família na narrativa gótica contemporânea." Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro, 2010. http://www.bdtd.uerj.br/tde_busca/arquivo.php?codArquivo=2353.

Mustafa, Jamil M. "Mapping the late-Victorian subject : psychology, cartography, and the Gothic novel /." 1999. http://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?url_ver=Z39.88-2004&res_dat=xri:pqdiss&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:dissertation&rft_dat=xri:pqdiss:9934096.

Wurtz, James F. "A very strange agony modernism, memory, and Irish gothic fiction /." 2005. http://etd.nd.edu/ETD-db/theses/available/etd-06032005-151104/.

Bondhus, Charles Michael. "Gothic Journeys: Imperialist Discourse, the Gothic Novel, and the European Other." 2010. https://scholarworks.umass.edu/open_access_dissertations/203.

Gothic Literature - Study Guide

Nothing makes you feel more alive than getting a good scare by a horror story! Gothic Fiction has a long history, and remains popular to this day. We hope this guide is particularly useful for teachers and students to explore the genre and read some great stories.

Overview of Gothic Literature , Exemplary Works , Etymology & Historical Context , Quotes , Discussion Questions , Useful Links , and Notes/Teacher Comments

Overview of Gothic Literature

The genre of "Gothic Literature" emerged as the darkest form of Dark Romanticism in its extreme expressions of self-destruction and sin involving sheer terror, personal torment, graphic morbidity, madness, and the supernatural. Put simply, they are stories that scare the bejesus out of you! Edgar Allan Poe wrote some of the finest macabre tales in this genre. Other prominent authors of the genre include Mary Shelley , Bram Stoker , J. Sheridan Le Fanu , H.P. Lovecraft , Philip K. Dick , Algernon Blackwood , Guy de Maupassant , Amelia B. Edwards , M.R. James , Arthur Machen , Elizabeth Gaskell , W.W. Jacobs , W.F. Harvey , and Robert W. Chambers .

Exemplary Works

We offer an exceptional collection of macabre tales: The Gothic, Ghost, Horror & Weird Library

Best Halloween Stories

Both of the above pages offer summaries, the stories and author biographies, so you can find just the right kind of "scary" to suit your mood. See our section of Quotes to get a taste for some lesser known works of gothic fiction you may also enjoy.

Etymology & Historical Context

Originating in England and Germany in the later part of the 18th century, it grew out of Romanticism , a strong reaction against the Transcendental Movement . Dark Romanticism draws from darker elements of the human psyche, the evil side of spiritual truth. Gothic literature took that further, involving horror, terror, death, omens, the supernatural, and heroines in distress. The first recognized Gothic novel was Horace Walpole 's The Castle of Otranto (1764). In the nineteenth century, Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu became a leading author of horror and ghost stories. His female lesbian dracula novel, Carmilla (1872), inspired Bram Stoker 's Dracula (1897).

Because of its superstitious elements, combining history with fiction, intellectuals of the Enlightenment were offended by Gothic literature's "fake" facts. Though some were convinced; reviews from Cambridge were that the book "made some of them cry a little, and all in general afraid to go to bed o' nights." Several authors helped legitimize the genre by imposing realism to give credibility to their fantastic supernatural elements (authors such as Ann Radcliffe and Clara Reeve , whom we do no feature here). Read H.P. Lovecraft 's fascinating book with chapters on the dawn of the horror tale, Poe, and weird traditions in America and the British Isles: Supernatural Horror in Literature .

What made American Gothic Fiction distinctive from European authors? Three words: Edgar Allan Poe . Poe owns the genre; the tragic events of his own lifetime helped him see and write about the world's worst evils. His curiosity with psychological trauma, the supernatural, and experience with mental illness extended a degree of horror that is unparalleled. As Poe wrote in The Tell-Tale Heart : " What you mistake for madness is but over-acuteness of the senses. " While other American authors, including Nathaniel Hawthorne ( The Prophetic Pictures ) and Washington Irving ( The Legend of Sleepy Hollow ), contributed to the genre of gothic fiction, nobody tops Edgar Allan Poe . Not even contemporary horror author, Stephen King , though his diabolical clown story movie remake, It is enjoying a successful resurgence to invigorate the genre once again.

The historical context of Gothic Literature has evolved with the prevailing social, political, and personal events of the authors and their times. Regardless of the context and setting, such as the Salem Witch Trials, the American Revolutionary War, the Vietnam War, the post-Zombie apocalypse, unrequited love (a timeless theme), works of Gothic literature utilize common elements that keep readers coming back for more. Though the genre has come in and out of popularity, authors throughout the ages continue to have an audience for their stories of terror, horror and mysteries of the supernatural.

Explain what the following quotes meaning and why they are exemplars of Gothic Literature:

"It was, indeed, an exquisite symbol beneath which men long ago veiled their knowledge of the most awful, most secret forces which lie at the heart of all things; forces before which the souls of men must wither and die and blacken, as their bodies blacken under the electric current." -- The Great God Pan (chapter 6), Arthur Machen

Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing, Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before; But the silence was unbroken, and the darkness gave no token, And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, `Lenore!' -- The Raven , Edgar Allan Poe

"A shriek of terror, a wild unintelligible cry for help and mercy; burst from my lips as I flung myself against the door, and strove in vain to open it." -- The Phantom Coach , Amelia B. Edwards

"As the gate swung wider and the sorcery of the drug and the dream pushed me through, I knew that all sights and glories were at an end; for in that new realm was neither land nor sea, but only the white void of unpeopled and illimitable space. So, happier than I had ever dared hope to be, I dissolved again into that native infinity of crystal oblivion from which the daemon Life had called me for one brief and desolate hour.” -- Ex Oblivione , H.P. Lovecraft

"The fact that Henry Armstrong was buried did not seem to him to prove that he was dead; he had always been a hard man to convince. That he really was buried, the testimony of his senses compelled him to admit." -- One Summer Night , Ambrose Bierce

"I touched these human remains, which must have belonged to a giant. The uncommonly long fingers were attached by enormous tendons which still had pieces of skin hanging to them in places. This hand was terrible to see; it made one think of some savage vengeance." -- The Hand , Guy de Maupassant

"And terrible fishes to seize my flesh, Such as a living man might fear, And eat me while I am firm and fresh,-- Not wait till I've been dead for a year!" -- Burial , Edna St. Vincent Millay

"I have, indeed, no abhorrence of danger, except in its absolute effect--in terror. In this unnerved-in this pitiable condition--I feel that the period will sooner or later arrive when I must abandon life and reason together, in some struggle with the grim phantasm, FEAR." -- The Fall of the House of Usher , Edgar Allan Poe

"'The sin of witchcraft.' We read about it, we look on it from the outside; but we can hardly realize the terror it induced. Every impulsive or unaccustomed action, every little nervous affection, every ache or pain was noticed, not merely by those around the sufferer, but by the person himself, whoever he might be, that was acting, or being acted upon, in any but the most simple and ordinary manner." -- Lois the Witch , Elizabeth Gaskell

"I perceived myself outside my body-- saw my body near me, but certainly not containing me...I was a great cloud-- if I may express it that way-- anchored to my body. It appeared to me, at first, as if I had discovered a greater self of which the conscious being in my brain was only a little part." -- The Stolen Body , H.G. Wells

"A phantom haunts and hallows the marble tomb or grassy hillock where its material form was laid. Till purified from each stain of clay; till the passions of the living world are all forgotten; till it have less brotherhood with the wayfarers of earth, than with spirits that never wore mortality,—the ghost must linger round the grave. O, it is a long and dreary watch to some of us!" -- Graves and Goblins , Nathaniel Hawthorne

"Veil'd Melancholy has her sovran shrine, Though seen of none save him whose strenuous tongue Can burst Joy's grape against his palate fine; His soul shall taste the sadness of her might, And be among her cloudy trophies hung." -- Ode on Melancholy , John Keats

The tombstone read: "He passed away very suddenly on August 20th, 190- 'In the midst of life we are in death.'" -- August Heat , W.F. Harvey

"Satan has his companions, fellow-devils, to admire and encourage him; but I am solitary and abhorred." -- Frankenstein (chapter 15) by Mary Shelley

Discussion Questions

1. Identify the characteristics of Gothic Literature and examples of work which fit the genre. Identify the different types of "scary" that qualify.

3. Mary E. Wilkins Freeman 's story, Luella Miller . It is about a female vampire who is a parasitic host, consuming her victims with her own dependency, helplessness, and fear. Explain whether you consider it an example of Feminist Literature , in addition to Goth Lit.

5. Identify a modern gothic literature author (e.g., Stephen King , Neil Gaiman , Tim Burton ). Provide examples of their work as evidence of their place in the genre.

6. Explain the use of foreshadowing and elements of suspense in The Monkey's Paw .

8. Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is an allegory for something . Provide textual evidence to support your explanation of one of Stevenson 's moral lessons in the story.

9. What makes a good ghost story? Consider The Old Nurse's Story by Elizabeth Gaskell , who conveys many gothic elements such as a sense that nature is gloomy and demonic, organ music coming out of nowhere, and the ghost of the dead master "wailed and triumphed just like a living creature." What's the moral of the story?

Useful Links

Supernatural Horror in Literature by H.P. Lovecraft

The Rise of Gothic Literature , an overview of its origins and many forms

Luella Miller: A Marxist Feminist Vampire Story

11th Grade Lesson Plan: Six Week Unit Study on Gothic Literature

9th Grade Lesson Plan: Intro to Gothic Literature Through Poe

7th Grade Lesson Plan: Foreshadowing and Morals in "The Monkey's Paw"

Teaching 'Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde'

American Literature Lesson Plans: 19th Century , including Poe, Bierce, Dickinson, Hawthorne

Gods and Monsters: Mythical Creatures, Demons, Vampires, Zombies

'The Nurse's Story' by Elizabeth Gaskell Q&A

Review of 'Lois the Witch' by Elizabeth Gaskell , a great history lesson about the Salem Witch Trials

Modern Gothic vs. Traditional Gothic Literature

Dark Romanticism - Study Guide

Biography and Works by Edgar Allan Poe

Biography and Works by Mary Shelley

Biography and Works by Bram Stoker

Biography and Works by Robert W. Chambers

Biography and Works by H.P. Lovecraft

Biography and Works by Algernon Blackwood

Biography and Works by Amelia B. Edwards

Biography and Works by W.W. Jacobs

Notes/Teacher Comments

Visit our Teacher Resources , supporting literacy instruction across all grade levels

American Literature's Study Guides

Return to American Literature Home Page

20 Unexpected Gothic Literature Dissertation Ideas

Gothic literature is a genre that was founded in England in the 18th century. People called it this way because most scenes of its novels took place in large mansions in the Victorian style. The authors tried to reveal societal problems by using dreadful themes and supernatural elements. If you need to write a dissertation, first of all you should find a strong topic, since it is the first step to create your dissertation project. Look through the following 20 ideas for your paper to come up with a good topic in this kind of literature.

• What do haunted houses symbolize in the works of Edmundson and Wallace?
• How do Gothic themes reflect problems of the Victorian society?
• What is the significance of monsters in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and The Hound of the Baskervilles?
• What kind of attitude did the Victorian authors have towards science and progress?
• How are domestic relationships reflected in the novels of the Victorian period?
• What do vampire women characters symbolize in Dracula?
• What is the significance of a vampire bite?
• How was sexuality represented in Carmilla and Dracula?
• What was the attitude of the Victorians towards sexuality and how did it affect the figure of Dracular?
• Why dark characters like vampires, ghosts, or monsters are important elements of Gothic literature novels and short stories?
• Why do authors focus on complicated characters whose morality is often questioned?
• What is the contribution of short stories by Edgar Poe to Southern Gothic literature?
• What is impact of Edgar Poe’s the dark style on the modern literature?
• The differences between styles of Edgar Poe and Nathaniel Hawthorne.
• What features are making Gothic literature different from romance and horror?
• How did societal fears reflect in the works of Tim Burton?
• How did Gothic culture influence music, films and literature in the 20th century?
• What are the modern examples of the Gothic novels?
• Why do authors of the Victorian period use supernatural themes in their works?
• What is the significance of using mentally unstable personalities in revealing the problems of the world around them?

As soon as you have picked the topic that suits most to your dissertation project, you should conduct a background investigation and check whether you can find enough materials to create a worthy work that can help you obtain your academic degree.

Dance Academy HP

Gothic literature dissertation ideas: 24 fresh suggestions.

The history of Gothic literature dates back to 18th century England. As a literary student, you should expect to write a dissertation on this genre of literature. The major setting for scenes as depicted in Gothic literature are Victorian style huge mansions. The themes of these novels are usually supernatural and scary events through which the authors try to show the readers some problems as it has to do with the society. If you are yet to come up with a topic for your paper, listed below are some ideas that would make great topics. They are:

• The symbolism of haunted mansions in the works of Wallace
• The Gothic work of Edmundson – What the symbolism of haunted houses
• Vampire bites – What are its significance?
• A reflection of domestic relationships during the Victorian time period
• The symbolism of female vampire characters in Dracula
• Understanding what monsters signify in The Hound of the Baskervilles
• The Victorian period authors and their view of science
• The many ways in which the Victorian period societal problems are exhibited in Gothic themed novels
• Edgar Poe’s work, the dark style - Analyzing its impact on modern literature
• The Dracula – The Victorian period attitude as it relates to sexuality and its impact on the literary figure
• In what ways was the representation of sexuality exhibited in Dracula and Carmilla?
• Gothic literature – The importance of incorporating ghosts, vampires, monsters and other dark characters as part of the elements
• Analyzing the differences between horror literature and Gothic literature
• Analyzing authors’ use of complex characters in Gothic literature
• Nathaniel Hawthorne and Edgar Poe – What makes them different?
• Edgar Poe’s short stories – Their relationship with Southern Gothic works
• Mentally sick characters in Gothic literature – Their significance in revealing societal problems
• Tim Burton’s works – A reflection of societal fears
• Analysis of modern literature that can be likened to Gothic literature
• The 20th century and Gothic culture – Its impact on modern films, music, and literature
• The use of supernatural themes in Victorian time novels – Why authors embraced the idea
• Are Victorian period problems effectively captured in Gothic literature?
• Dracula – The many reasons why it remains the most popular horror character
• Victorian period – The best period of horror literature

With adequate researches carried out and enough information gathered, any of the topics above can surely make a great Gothic literature dissertation. Go ahead and pick a topic that would help you towards obtaining an excellent academic degree.

Quick guides

• Statistics homework help
• Selecting a dissertation writing agency
• Dissertation writing acquirement
• Picking a dissertation company
• Best assignment writers
• Defining the dissertation approval
• Writing a successful Biology dissertation
• Undergraduate dissertation assistance
• Writing proposal for a Management paper
• Composing a dissertation effectively
• Dealing with Informatics paper defense
• A guide to the dissertation organization
• Creating a decent undergraduate paper
• Getting thesis writing advice
• Basic dissertation writing hints

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the Gothic's historicity and its role in extending and reifying domestic values. Combining this approach with the contributions that gender-based criticism have made to discourse on the

The thesis examines the social and literary context of the emergence of the Gothic in English literature and argues that it is intimately tied up with changes in social, political and gender relations in the period. The thesis argues against a superficial reading of the Gothic genre that sees it merely as a counterpoint to ...

Gothic, the term Gothic was also "invoked in many political debates, signifying, for a range of political positions, revolutionary mobs, enlightened radicals and irrational adherence to tyrannical and superstitious feudal values" (5). The myriad of political meanings for the word, "Gothic," illustrates the original ambivalence of the term.

This Chapter will examine the relevant literature surrounding Gothic Fiction and Corpus Stylistics. The work reviewed here will provide a more complete background for the area of study, as well as help to establish the themes of Gothic Fiction relevant to the rest of the dissertation. 2.1. Gothic Fiction

This article aims to address the genre of Gothic literature, its evolution and place in modern culture. Gothic fiction is a controversial genre, and while for certain critics, Gothic genre...

Gothic studies, the specialist academic field that explores the Gothic text, has developed substantially over the last twenty-five years. The field often frames the Gothic as a serious literature, involved in historic discourse, and having special psychological acuity; this thesis suggests that there are a number of problems with

I. Abstract . Gothic novels by British women writers such as Ann Radcliffe and the Brontё sisters . have been the subject of several decades of research. This project focuses on Frances Burney, an . influential woman writer of the late eighteenth-century, and aims to present her as a Gothic . novelist.

Theses/Dissertations from 2020. PDF. When the Foreign Became Familiar: Modernism, Expatriation, and Spatial Identities in the Twentieth Century, Danielle Kristene Clapham. PDF. Reforming Victorian Sense/Abilities: Disabilities in Elizabeth Gaskell's Social Problem Novels, Hunter Nicole Duncan. PDF.

This essay is an attempt to dissect the concept of the Gothic novel and evaluate its evolution in a historical and chronological manner. Often, the essence of a piece of literature imbibes its...

Abstract. Prior to this dissertation most research on the Gothic Revival in America has been restricted to architectural genealogy and stylistic development. An interpretative analysis of the American perception of the style has been lacking in recent scholarship. Th ... [more] Subjects. America Century Gothic House Nineteenth Revival Spirit. Types

We provide doctoral supervision on all aspects of the Gothic, from the eighteenth century to the present day, and across disciplines, especially literature, film, television and video games. We also supervise dissertations in Gothic Creative Writing. You can browse through our specialist staff profiles for areas of expertise here.

This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Student Theses at OPUS Open Portal to University Scholarship. It has been accepted for ... It will also study the development of Gothic literature in the United States by analyzing the most prolific early American author, Edgar Allan Poe, and how

Gothic literature reflects the antagonism between reason and fantasy. Or one may even say it reflects the search for identity, the insecurities of the individual and therefore fosters the...

This thesis evaluates the roles women play in Gothic fiction, specifically Walpole's The Castle of Otranto, Lewis's The Monk, and Stoker's Dracula.... Abstract : In the eerie world of Gothic literature, sound represents a source of fear, anxiety... Classical literature and Gothic Fiction: a Complex Encounter [Thesis Dissertation]. May 2010.

List of dissertations / theses on the topic 'Gothic literature - History and criticism'. Scholarly publications with full text pdf download. Related research topic ideas.

List of dissertations / theses on the topic 'Gothic literature'. Scholarly publications with full text pdf download. Related research topic ideas.

Botting explores the transgressive nature of women's gothic: " A challenge to, or interrogation of, forms of fiction dominated by patriarchal assumptions, Gothic novels have been reassessed as part of a wider feminist critical movement that recovers suppressed or marginalized writing by women and addresses issues of female experience, sexual opp...

Full text. Add to bibliography. APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles. Abstract: This article seeks to establish the importance of gothic convention and architecture's role in Poe's "The Fall of the House of Usher" and Southworth's The Hidden Hand.

Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Arts, Gothic' To see the other types of publications on this topic, follow the link: Arts, Gothic. Author: Grafiati. Published: 4 June 2021. Last updated: 1 February 2022. Create a spot-on reference in APA, MLA, Chicago, Harvard, and other styles. Select a source type: Book. Website. Journal article.

This thesis provides a critique of the gaze in Gothic novels and French melodramas between 1790 and 1825. After situating itself historically in relation to the eighteenth century's prioritization of vision, the thesis then progresses in chapters two to seven to textual examinations of visual critiques provided by Gothic novelists.

The genre of "Gothic Literature" emerged as the darkest form of Dark Romanticism in its extreme expressions of self-destruction and sin involving sheer terror, personal torment, graphic morbidity, madness, and the supernatural. Put simply, they are stories that scare the bejesus out of you!

Some Great Ideas For Gothic Literature Dissertation Topics. 20 Unexpected Gothic Literature Dissertation Ideas. Gothic literature is a genre that was founded in England in the 18th century. People called it this way because most scenes of its novels took place in large mansions in the Victorian style.

Gothic Literature Dissertation Ideas: 24 Fresh Suggestions. The history of Gothic literature dates back to 18th century England. As a literary student, you should expect to write a dissertation on this genre of literature. The major setting for scenes as depicted in Gothic literature are Victorian style huge mansions.

Dissertation On Gothic Literature, Argumentative Thesis Statement For A Rose For Emily, Liberation Theology Research Paper Topics, Paragraph Writing Of Christmas Vacation, Samples Of Application Letter For Work Immersion, Controversial Issues Write Essays, Sample Resume Coop

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Dance Academy HP

Gothic literature dissertation ideas: 24 fresh suggestions.

The history of Gothic literature dates back to 18th century England. As a literary student, you should expect to write a dissertation on this genre of literature. The major setting for scenes as depicted in Gothic literature are Victorian style huge mansions. The themes of these novels are usually supernatural and scary events through which the authors try to show the readers some problems as it has to do with the society. If you are yet to come up with a topic for your paper, listed below are some ideas that would make great topics. They are:

• The symbolism of haunted mansions in the works of Wallace
• The Gothic work of Edmundson – What the symbolism of haunted houses
• Vampire bites – What are its significance?
• A reflection of domestic relationships during the Victorian time period
• The symbolism of female vampire characters in Dracula
• Understanding what monsters signify in The Hound of the Baskervilles
• The Victorian period authors and their view of science
• The many ways in which the Victorian period societal problems are exhibited in Gothic themed novels
• Edgar Poe’s work, the dark style - Analyzing its impact on modern literature
• The Dracula – The Victorian period attitude as it relates to sexuality and its impact on the literary figure
• In what ways was the representation of sexuality exhibited in Dracula and Carmilla?
• Gothic literature – The importance of incorporating ghosts, vampires, monsters and other dark characters as part of the elements
• Analyzing the differences between horror literature and Gothic literature
• Analyzing authors’ use of complex characters in Gothic literature
• Nathaniel Hawthorne and Edgar Poe – What makes them different?
• Edgar Poe’s short stories – Their relationship with Southern Gothic works
• Mentally sick characters in Gothic literature – Their significance in revealing societal problems
• Tim Burton’s works – A reflection of societal fears
• Analysis of modern literature that can be likened to Gothic literature
• The 20th century and Gothic culture – Its impact on modern films, music, and literature
• The use of supernatural themes in Victorian time novels – Why authors embraced the idea
• Are Victorian period problems effectively captured in Gothic literature?
• Dracula – The many reasons why it remains the most popular horror character
• Victorian period – The best period of horror literature

With adequate researches carried out and enough information gathered, any of the topics above can surely make a great Gothic literature dissertation. Go ahead and pick a topic that would help you towards obtaining an excellent academic degree.

Quick guides

• Statistics homework help
• Selecting a dissertation writing agency
• Dissertation writing acquirement
• Picking a dissertation company
• Best assignment writers
• Defining the dissertation approval
• Writing a successful Biology dissertation
• Undergraduate dissertation assistance
• Writing proposal for a Management paper
• Composing a dissertation effectively
• Dealing with Informatics paper defense
• A guide to the dissertation organization
• Creating a decent undergraduate paper
• Getting thesis writing advice
• Basic dissertation writing hints