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.
 

Jodey Castricano is professor in the Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies at the University of British Columbia, Okanagan, and a research fellow at the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics. Her books include Animal Subjects: An Ethical Reader in a Posthuman World, Animal Subjects 2.0, and Cryptomimesis: The Gothic and Jacques Derrida’s Ghost Writing.