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Gothic Literary Studies
Gothic Metaphysics: From Alchemy to the Anthropocene
Rethinks Gothic literature in the time of the Anthropocene.
Gothic Metaphysics is a radical departure from Freudian-centered criticism of Gothic literature. Since its inception in 1764, the Gothic has held space for a worldview that acknowledged a living, even sentient, cosmos. Although it was later deemed “uncanny” and anachronistic by Freud, Jodey Castricano argues that the Gothic can still offer us an alternative vision of reality. The book explores the ways in which Gothic literature can help us bring about a paradigm shift in our relation to the planet in the time of the Anthropocene. Taking the influence of the Middle Ages and psychoanalytic thought into account, Gothic Metaphysics is a multivalent exploration of how the Gothic has sustained the viewpoint of a sentient world in spite of modern rejection.
Gothic Metaphysics is a radical departure from Freudian-centered criticism of Gothic literature. Since its inception in 1764, the Gothic has held space for a worldview that acknowledged a living, even sentient, cosmos. Although it was later deemed “uncanny” and anachronistic by Freud, Jodey Castricano argues that the Gothic can still offer us an alternative vision of reality. The book explores the ways in which Gothic literature can help us bring about a paradigm shift in our relation to the planet in the time of the Anthropocene. Taking the influence of the Middle Ages and psychoanalytic thought into account, Gothic Metaphysics is a multivalent exploration of how the Gothic has sustained the viewpoint of a sentient world in spite of modern rejection.
- GenresPhilosophyNonfiction
288 pages, Hardcover
First published November 15, 2021
36 people want to read
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March 22, 2024
Jodey Castricano's proposal for a Gothic metaphysics demands not only a comprehensive overhaul of Gothic literary theory, but also an ontological shift writ large. She accurately situates the Gothic, both temporally and philosophically, in opposition to the Enlightenment's subject/object distinctions, mechanistic scientism, and innate human exceptionalism, but she goes a step further by locating animism as a central feature of the Gothic and connecting that idea with quantum entanglement, alchemy, animism, synchronicity, and Indigenous worldviews of interconnectedness.
Maybe most provocatively, her affront to Gothic scholarship's widespread subject/object assumptions also encourages us to question wholesale allegiance to Freud and turn instead to Freud's peer-turned-pseudo-nemesis, C. G. Jung; Castricano makes a persuasive argument against Gothic scholarship's paradoxical devotion to a staunch, indeed obsessively materialist thinker's premises. This is provocative and exciting not only as a metaphysical intervention, but also as an argument against what has become an almost dogmatic element of Gothic scholarship.
Maybe most provocatively, her affront to Gothic scholarship's widespread subject/object assumptions also encourages us to question wholesale allegiance to Freud and turn instead to Freud's peer-turned-pseudo-nemesis, C. G. Jung; Castricano makes a persuasive argument against Gothic scholarship's paradoxical devotion to a staunch, indeed obsessively materialist thinker's premises. This is provocative and exciting not only as a metaphysical intervention, but also as an argument against what has become an almost dogmatic element of Gothic scholarship.
Displaying 1 of 1 review