Abstract
Studies of the Gothic have often focused on the revenant of hauntings and spectrality—a theoretical approach that often loses sight of the materiality of the body, and specifically body parts. This introductory chapter explores the range of film and literature texts that form the studies within Gothic Dissections. The chapter positions Frankenstein as the progenitor of the Gothic body, and summarises the main theories that are relevant to the discussion: Sigmund Freud’s work on the uncanny, Julia Kristeva’s theory of abjection, Barbara Creed’s work on the monstrous-feminine, and Mikhail Bakhtin’s discussions of the carnivalesque and the grotesque. It argues that understandings of the Gothic need to be widened to recognise processes of adaptation and the wealth of film examples.
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Conrich, I., Sedgwick, L. (2017). Introduction. In: Gothic Dissections in Film and Literature. Palgrave Gothic. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-30358-5_1
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