The Haunted States of America
Gothic Regionalism in Post-war American Fiction
9781786838766
Distributed for University of Wales Press
The Haunted States of America
Gothic Regionalism in Post-war American Fiction
A study of regional anxiety in postwar Gothic fiction, beyond the red scare.
The Haunted States of America reveals how the red scare exploited regional narrative traditions as it spread across the national imagination. In particular, Cold War anxieties found a welcome home in regional forms of Gothic fiction that already mediated anxieties about threats to local power structures: white supremacy, patriarchy, and colonialism, as well as capitalism. James Morgart argues that postwar Gothic fiction in the United States should be understood through these local anxieties and narratives first, before reading for national resonances. Through a series of localized readings—in the South, the Midwest, New England, New York, and California—Morgart reveals more than a century of regionalized angst behind the twentieth-century American Gothic.
The Haunted States of America reveals how the red scare exploited regional narrative traditions as it spread across the national imagination. In particular, Cold War anxieties found a welcome home in regional forms of Gothic fiction that already mediated anxieties about threats to local power structures: white supremacy, patriarchy, and colonialism, as well as capitalism. James Morgart argues that postwar Gothic fiction in the United States should be understood through these local anxieties and narratives first, before reading for national resonances. Through a series of localized readings—in the South, the Midwest, New England, New York, and California—Morgart reveals more than a century of regionalized angst behind the twentieth-century American Gothic.
256 pages | 5 1/2 x 8 1/2 | © 2022
Literature and Literary Criticism: American and Canadian Literature, General Criticism and Critical Theory
Reviews
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements
Introduction
1 ‘The Death of a Culture’: Subversion of Monstrosity in the Southern Gothic
2 Hanging Women on the Hill: Exposure of Patriarchal Conformity in the
New England Gothic
3Haunted Grounds of Healing: Horrors of Normativity and Genocide in
the Gothic Midwest
4New York, New York…: Greed and Abjection in the New York Gothic
5Repressed Ramonas and Braceros: Return of the Oppressed in the
Southern California Gothic
Coda
Works Cited
Introduction
1 ‘The Death of a Culture’: Subversion of Monstrosity in the Southern Gothic
2 Hanging Women on the Hill: Exposure of Patriarchal Conformity in the
New England Gothic
3Haunted Grounds of Healing: Horrors of Normativity and Genocide in
the Gothic Midwest
4New York, New York…: Greed and Abjection in the New York Gothic
5Repressed Ramonas and Braceros: Return of the Oppressed in the
Southern California Gothic
Coda
Works Cited