Gothic Nostalgia: The Uses of Toxic Memory in 21st Century Popular Culture

ISBN-13: 9783031438516 / Angielski

Simon Bacon; Katarzyna Bronk-Bacon

Spis treści

Acknowledgements

 

1. Introduction

Simon Bacon and Katarzyna Bronk-Bacon

 

 

PART I:

FRAMEWORKS OF GOTHIC NOSTALGIA  AND TOXICITY

 

2. 1408 and the Structure of Haunting

Jeffrey Andrew Weinstock

 

3. Toxic Nostalgia in Contemporary Gothic Horror

Brandon R. Grafius

 

4. Toxic Nostalgia in the Wake of the Postmodern Turn

Matthias Stephan

 

5. Deepfake Sockpuppets: The Toxic “Realities” of a Weaponised Internet — Katy Wareham-Morris

 

 

PART II:

THE TOXIC SCREEN

 

6. The Nostalgia of Setting, Sex and Sound in the Wicker Men Films

Lauren Rosewarne

 

7. The American Dream and American Nightmare: The Toxic Pursuit of Nostalgia and Happiness Presented in Poltergeist (1982) and Poltergeist (2015)

Rob Mclaughlin

 

8. “You’re Too Focused on Where You’ve Been”:Uncanny Nostalgia in Mary Poppins Returns Daniel Kasper

 

9. Pulling Our Strings: The Gothic Nostalgia of Luca Guadagnino’s Suspiria

 J. Simpson

 

10. “I Just Wanted to Preserve It Just as It is”: Gothic Nostalgia in The Watcher

Abel Fenwick

 

 

PART III:

IDENTITY

 

11. Prevention is Better Than Cure: Anachronistic Therapists and Toxic Wellness

Catherine Pugh

 

12.Patriarchy Then and Now — with a Twist: The Postmodern Horror of Alex Garland’s Men M. Keith Booker and Isra Daraiseh

 

13. “But now, yeah, I’m thinking I’m back”: The All-consuming Gothic Nostalgia in the John Wick Franchise

Simon Bacon

 

14. Gothic Nostalgia in Louise Welsh’s The Cutting Room and The Second Cut

Martyn Colebrook

 

15. Toxic Ableism and Gothic Nostalgia in Fanfiction about Mermaids

Martine Mussies

 

 

PART IV:

ENVIRONMENTS

 

16. Of Greed and the Undead Past: Rahi Anil Barve’s Tumbbad as an Exercise in Toxic Nostalgia

Aparajita Hazra

 

17. Soviet Nostalgia in the Vampire Trilogy A Tale of the Soviet Vampire by Aleksandr Slepakov (2014-18)

Patrycja Pichnicka-Trivedi

 

18. “Oh no. Not again!”: Toxic Nostalgia and Antisemetic Recursive Memory in Ghost Stories 

Vicky Brewster

 

19. Extremist Nostalgia: Mike Ma’s Novellas as 21st Century Far-Right Gothic

Helen Young

 

Notes on Contributors

O autorze

Simon Bacon is an independent scholar based in Poznań, Poland.

 

Katarzyna Bronk-Bacon is Assistant Professor at Adam Mickiewicz University in

Poznan, Poland.

Blurb

This book is an original and innovative study of how Gothic nostalgia and toxic memory

are used to underpin and promote the ongoing culture wars and populist politics in

contemporary popular culture. The essays collected here cover topics from the spectral to

the ecological, deep fakes to toxic ableism, Mary Poppins to John Wick to reveal

how the use of an imaginary past to shape the present, creates truly Gothic times that we

can never escape. These ‘hungry ghosts’ from the past find resonance with the Gothic

which speaks equally of a past that often not only haunts the present but will not let it

escape its grasp. This collection will look at the confluence between various kinds of toxic

nostalgia and popular culture to suggest the ways in which contemporary populism has

resurrected ideological monsters from the grave to gorge on the present and any possibility

of change that the future might represent.

 

Simon Bacon is an independent scholar based in Poznań, Poland.

 

Katarzyna Bronk-Bacon is Assistant Professor at Adam Mickiewicz University in

Poznan, Poland.