Fashioning Gothic Bodies - Softcover

Catherine Spooner

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0719064015 ISBN 13: 9780719064012

Publisher: Manchester University Press, 2004

Synopsis

This is the first book to consider the Gothic and fashion together and as such it represents a new development in the field. Takes an innovative interdisciplinary approach which distinguishes it from the majority of works on the Gothic. Sheds new light on the cultural construction of Gothic bodies. Covers a broad historical sweep from the 1790's to the present day and is thus relevant to students and scholars working in a wide variety of areas.

About this title

Synopsis:

This study explores the role played by clothing in the discourses of the Gothic. It makes an explicit connection between the veils, masks and disguises of gothic convention and historically specific fashion discourses, from the revealing chemise-dress popularized by Queen Marie Antoinette to the subcultural style of contemporary goths. In so doing it sheds light on the cultural construction of gothic bodies. Taking an original, interdisciplinary approach, Catherine Spooner offers readings of literary, cinematic and popular cultural texts in the context of fashion from the 1790s to the 1990s. Progressing chronologically from the novels of Radcliffe and Lewis through the "sensation" fiction of the Victorian period and the gothic fiction of the "fin-de-siecle", the text culminates with 20th-century film and the supposed resurgence of the gothic in pre-millennial culture. This book should be of interest to students working on the gothic in literary, film and cultural studies, as well as to literary scholars and fashion theoreticians.

About the Author:

Catherine Spooner is Lecturer in English at the University of Reading

About this edition

• Publisher: Manchester University Press
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 0719064015
• ISBN 13: 9780719064012
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 234