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Horror Literature - Literary Criticism, Horror Films
Limits of Horror: Technology, Bodies, Gothic by Fred Botting β€” book cover

Limits of Horror: Technology, Bodies, Gothic

by Fred Botting
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Overview

"Horror isn't what it used to be. Nor are its Gothic avatars. The meaning of monsters, vampires and ghosts has changed significantly over the last two hundred years, as have the mechanisms (from fiction to fantasmagoria, film and video games) through which they are produced and consumed. Moving from Gothic to cybergothic, through technological modernity and across a range of literary, cinematic and popular cultural texts, Limits of Horror critically examines these changes and the questions they pose for our understanding of contemporary culture and subjectivity." Re-examining key concepts such as the uncanny, the sublime, terror, shock and abjection in terms of their bodily and technological implications, this book advances current critical and theoretical debates on Gothic horror to propose a new theory of cultural production based on an extensive discussion of Freud's idea of the death drive.

Synopsis

Horror isn’t what it used to be. Nor are its Gothic avatars.

The meaning of monsters, vampires and ghosts has changed significantly over the last two hundred years, as have the mechanisms (from fiction to fantasmagoria, film and video games) through which they are produced and consumed. Limits of Horror, moving from gothic to cybergothic, through technological modernity and across a range of literary, cinematic and popular cultural texts, critically examines these changes and the questions they pose for understanding contemporary culture and subjectivity.

Re-examining key concepts such as the uncanny, the sublime, terror, shock and abjection in terms of their bodily and technological implications, this book advances current critical and theoretical debates on Gothic horror to propose a new theory of cultural production based on an extensive discussion of Freud’s idea of the death drive.

Limits of Horror will appeal to students and academics in Literature, Film, Media and Cultural Studies and Cultural Theory.

About the Author, Fred Botting

Fred Botting is Professor in the Institute for Cultural Research at Lancaster University.

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Book Details

Published
December 1, 2010
Publisher
Manchester University Press
Pages
240
Format
Paperback
ISBN
9780719083655

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