BOTTING, Fred, Limits of Horror. Technology, Bodies, Gothic, New York, Palgrave Macmillan, 2008, 272 p.
ISBN 0-7190-7754-0
RÉSUMÉ
Horror isn't what it used to be. Nor are its Gothic avatars.
Themeaning of monsters, vampires and ghosts has changed significantly overthe last two hundred years, as have the mechanisms (from fiction tofantasmagoria, film and video games) through which they are producedand consumed. Limits of Horror, moving from gothic tocybergothic, through technological modernity and across a range ofliterary, cinematic and popular cultural texts, critically examinesthese changes and the questions they pose for understandingcontemporary culture and subjectivity.
Re-examining keyconcepts such as the uncanny, the sublime, terror, shock and abjectionin terms of their bodily and technological implications, this bookadvances current critical and theoretical debates on Gothic horror topropose a new theory of cultural production based on an extensivediscussion 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.
TABLE DES MATIÈRES
Acknowledgements * Introduction:Horror now and then* Daddy's dead * Gun of the father * Beyond the paternal principle *Gothic times * Candygothic * Tech noir * Doom with a view * Gothicshocks * Reading machines * Phantasmagoria * The small scream * Darkbodies * An--aesthetics * Horreality * Black holes * Beyond the Gothicprinciple * A child's game * Go--o--o--othic * Dark precursor * Toinfinity and beyond * References * Index
BIOGRAPHIE
Fred Botting is Professor in the Institute for Cultural Research at Lancaster University.