The Ecogothic Werewolf in Literature

Wolves, Woods and Wilderness

Dr Kaja Franck (Autor)

Buch | Hardcover

240 Seiten

2025
Bloomsbury Academic (Verlag)
978-1-350-44112-5 (ISBN)

Noch nicht erschienen (ca. August 2025)
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Using an Ecogothic lens, this book offers a new conceptual framework for the werewolf in literature, recasting the lycanthrope as an emblem for society’s fear of untamed wilderness. Tracing lycanthropy from a place of liminality to hybridity and to myriad and complex subjectivities, The Ecogothic Werewolf in Literature reassesses the Gothic werewolf to show how the relationship between humans and wolves has influenced its representation in literature. Starting with Dracula and tracing lycanthropic imaginings through natural histories, folk and fairy tales to contemporary iterations in the works of Maggie Stiefvater, Whitley Strieber and Glen Duncan, Kaja Franck reconsiders the trope of the ‘beast within’ in the werewolf canon.

From early conservationist Aldo Leopold’s awakening regarding the death of wolves, to George Monbiot’s call to rewild, tensions around humanity’s responsibility to the natural world have emerged in lycanthropic literature. A challenge to previous anthropocentric analysis of Gothic horror’s stock monster, Franck considers the changing attitude towards wolves alongside the growing environmentalism movement and reclaims the wolf from the figure of the werewolf.

Kaja Franck is Lecturer in English Literature at the University of Hertfordshire, UK. She is the co-organiser of the 'Macabre Danse' research project, which is dedicated to exploring the intersection of dance and the gothic. Her research interests centre on the ecogothic particularly monsters and monstrous animals, weird pedagogy, and she has previously published on the depiction of werewolves in Dracula (1897), the Canadian gothic and YA fiction, and organised international conferences on werewolves, vampires and faeries in literature and popular culture. More recently her publications include chapters in Religious Horror and the Ecogothic (2024, ed Kathleen Hudson and Mary Going) and The Legacy of John William Polidori (2024, ed Sam George and Bill Hughes).

Introduction: The Shifting Werewolf: Bodies and Meaning Transformed
Chapter 1: Dracula: The Wolf in Vampire's Clothing
Chapter 2: The American Wilderness and the Werewolf
Chapter 3: The Werewolf in the Woods: Young Adult Gothic and Metaphoric Lycanthropy
Chapter 4: The Return of the Werewolf: The Monstrous Voice at Boundary between Human and Animal
Conclusion: The Hopeful Werewolf and the Environmental Apocalypse

Bibliography
Index

Erscheint lt. Verlag	21.8.2025
Verlagsort	London
Sprache	englisch
Maße	156 x 234 mm
Themenwelt	Literatur ► Fantasy / Science Fiction ► Science Fiction
	Literatur ► Krimi / Thriller / Horror ► Horror
	Geisteswissenschaften ► Sprach- / Literaturwissenschaft ► Anglistik / Amerikanistik
	Geisteswissenschaften ► Sprach- / Literaturwissenschaft ► Literaturgeschichte
	Geisteswissenschaften ► Sprach- / Literaturwissenschaft ► Literaturwissenschaft
ISBN-10	1-350-44112-0 / 1350441120
ISBN-13	978-1-350-44112-5 / 9781350441125
Zustand	Neuware