Monstrous Women and Ecofeminism in the Victorian Gothic, 1837–1871

Nicole C. Dittmer (Autor)

Buch | Softcover

238 Seiten

2024
Lexington Books/Fortress Academic (Verlag)
978-1-6669-0081-1 (ISBN)

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Offering an ecofeminist approach to the interdisciplinary readings of the early-to-mid Victorian Gothic of both canonical narratives and ephemeral penny bloods and dreadfuls, Dittmer identifies assumed “monstrous” women as monistic mind-body figurations, who reject social confines and reclaim nature.

Nicole C. Dittmer offers a reimagining of the popular Gothic female “monster” figure in early-to-mid-Victorian literature. Regardless of the extensive scholarship concerning monstrosities, these pre-fin-de-siècle figurations have often been neglected by critical studies or interpreted as fragments of mind and body which create a division between culture and nature. In Monstrous Women and Ecofeminism, Dittmer deploys monism to delineate from and contest such dualism, unifies the material-immaterial aspects of fictional women, and blurs the distinction between nature-culture. Blending intertextual disciplines of medical sciences, ecofeminism, and fiction, she exposes female monstrosities as material and semiotic figurations. This book, then, identifies how women in the Victorian Gothic are informed by the entanglement of both immaterial discourses and material conditions. When repressed by social customs, the monistic mind-body of the material-semiotic figure reacts to and disrupts processes of ontology, transforming women into “wild” and “monstrous” (re)presentations.

Nicole C. Dittmer is lecturer at The College of New Jersey and proofreader/editorial board member at Studies in Gothic Fiction.

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Chapter One: Social Behavior and ‘Domesticated’ Women

Chapter Two: Forbidden Desire, Mental Degradation, and Nature: Repression of Gothic Madwomen

Chapter Three: Neglect, Rage, and Reaction: Female Criminality and the Victorian Gothic

Chapter Four: Monstrous Transformations and Victorian She-Wolves

Conclusion

Appendix: For Further Reading

References

About the Author

Erscheinungsdatum	02.04.2024
Reihe/Serie	Ecocritical Theory and Practice
Sprache	englisch
Maße	152 x 229 mm
Themenwelt	Sachbuch/Ratgeber ► Natur / Technik ► Natur / Ökologie
	Geisteswissenschaften ► Sprach- / Literaturwissenschaft ► Anglistik / Amerikanistik
	Geisteswissenschaften ► Sprach- / Literaturwissenschaft ► Literaturwissenschaft
	Sozialwissenschaften ► Politik / Verwaltung ► Politische Theorie
	Sozialwissenschaften ► Soziologie
ISBN-10	1-6669-0081-8 / 1666900818
ISBN-13	978-1-6669-0081-1 / 9781666900811
Zustand	Neuware