Gothic Afterlives

Gothic Afterlives examines the intersecting dimensions of contemporary Gothic horror and remakes scholarship, bringing together innovative perspectives from different areas of study. The research compiled in this collection covers a wide range of examples, including not only literature but also film, television, video games, and digital media remakes. Gothic Afterlives signals the cultural and conceptual impact of Gothic horror on transmedia production, with a focus on reimagining and remaking. While diverse in content and approach, all chapters pivot on two important points: first, they reflect some of the core preoccupations of Gothic horror by subverting cultural and social certainties about notions such as the body, technology, consumption, human nature, digitalization, scientific experimentation, national identity, memory, and gender and by challenging the boundaries between human and inhuman, self and Other, and good and evil. Second, and perhaps most important, all chapters in the collection collectively show what happens when well-known Gothic horror narratives are adapted and remade into different contexts, highlighting the implications of the mode-shifting registers, platforms, and chronologies in the process. As a collection, Gothic Afterlives hones in on contemporary sociocultural experiences and identities as they appear in contemporary popular culture and in the stories told and retold in the twenty-first century.

This is a varied collection, full of exciting new research from leading scholars in Gothic and Horror Studies, on the Gothic’s continued engagement with the processes of retelling and remediation. Wide-ranging, yet also case-specific, Gothic Afterlives is an essential read for anyone with an interest in how the mode is evolving in an age marked by the preponderance of sequels, prequels, (re-)adaptations, reboots and remakes., Join hands everyone as Lorna Piatti-Farnell leads us in a séance, summoning spirits of the past and showing how they are compelled to speak in the present! From Anne Radcliffe to Resident Evil and from Dracula to Disney villains, the contributions to Piatti-Farnell’s savvy and sophisticated Gothic Afterlives collection explore the ways contemporary film and media adapt and update older Gothic horror texts to suit contemporary circumstances and sensibilities. Transnational and multidisciplinary in their approaches, the chapters range from a specific focus on reimaginings of well-known texts such as Frankenstein to broader considerations of the adaptation process. Cutting edge in its methodology and extensive in focus, Gothic Afterlives will be essential reading not only for mediums and past-lives spelunkers, but for scholars and fans of contemporary Gothic horror in a variety of different media.

Lorna Piatti-Farnell is director of the Popular Culture Research Centre at Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand.