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Democracy and the American Gothic

Democracy and the American Gothic

Democracy and the American Gothic

Michael J. Blouin, Milligan University, Tennessee
October 2024
Available
Hardback
9781009539111

    While the political undercurrent of the American Gothic has been firmly established, few scholars have surveyed the genre's ambivalent relationship to democracy. The American Gothic routinely undercuts centralised authority by exposing the dark underbelly of the status quo; at the same time, the American Gothic tends to reflect a widespread mistrust of the masses. American readers are too afraid of democracy – and not yet fearful enough. This concise Element theorises the democratic and anti-democratic elements of the American Gothic by surveying the conflicted imaginaries of the genre's mainstays, including Charles Brockden Brown, Edgar Allan Poe, Shirley Jackson, and Stephen King.

    Product details

    October 2024
    Hardback
    9781009539111
    84 pages
    229 × 152 × 4 mm
    0.126kg
    Available

    Table of Contents

    • 1. Who's afraid of democracy?
    • 2. The horrors and terrors of a radical democracy
    • 3. The Jacksonian gothic
    • 4. Specters of democracy
    • 5. The requisite fears of democracy
    • References.
      Author
    • Michael J. Blouin , Milligan University, Tennessee