Our systems are now restored following recent technical disruption, and we’re working hard to catch up on publishing. We apologise for the inconvenience caused. Find out more

Recommended product

Popular links

Popular links


The Last Man and Gothic Sympathy

The Last Man and Gothic Sympathy

The Last Man and Gothic Sympathy

Michael Cameron, Dalhousie University
March 2024
This ISBN is for an eBook version which is distributed on our behalf by a third party.
Adobe eBook Reader
9781009357524
$23.00
USD
Adobe eBook Reader
USD
Hardback
USD
Paperback

    This Element explores the theme of 'Gothic sympathy' as it appears in a collection of 'Last Man' novels. A liminal site of both possibility and irreconcilability, Gothic sympathy at once challenges the anthropocentric bias of traditional notions of sympathetic concern, premising compassionate relations with other beings – animal, vegetal, etc. – beyond the standard measure of the liberal-humanist subject, and at the same time acknowledges the horror that is the ineluctable and untranslatable otherness accompanying, interrupting, and shaping such a sympathetic connection. Many examples of 'Last Man' fiction explore the dialectical impasse of Gothic sympathy by dramatizing complicated relationships between a lone liberal-humanist subject and other-than-human or posthuman subjects that will persist beyond humanity's extinction. Such confrontations as they appear in Mary Shelley's The Last Man, H.G. Wells's The Time Machine, and Richard Matheson's I Am Legend will be explored.

    Product details

    March 2024
    Adobe eBook Reader
    9781009357524
    0 pages
    This ISBN is for an eBook version which is distributed on our behalf by a third party.

    Table of Contents

    • 1. Gothic sympathy and the last man
    • 2. Shelley's infectious despair
    • 3. Wells's vicious sympathy
    • 4. Matheson's dialectic of posthuman sympathy
    • References.
      Author
    • Michael Cameron , Dalhousie University