Inhuman Materiality in Gothic Media (Routledge Research in Cultural and Media Studies)

by Aspasia Stephanou (Author)

• New

  Hardcover
  2019

  $158.24

  As a threat to attempts to control meaning and as something outside of the realm of consciousness, materiality lends itself ideally to discussions of gothic and horror. Using Paul de Man's concept of inhuman materiality, this book examines the manifestations of this materiality across different gothic media in order to delineate a contemporary philosophy of horror that is concerned with the (in)human. It proposes to read blood as the conduit of an unnameable materiality that circulates through gothic media, seducing with its familiar mask of gothic aesthetics only to uncover the horror of a totally alienating and inhuman otherness. The book offers innovative readings of notions of blood inscription in different media, of gender and mysticism in film, of the Dark Web, accelerationism, technoscience and bioart in order to account for the widespread haemophilia in contemporary culture.