Bloomsbury Academic The American Weird: Concept and Medium

Hitherto classified as a form of genre fiction, or as a particular aesthetic quality of literature by H. P. Lovecraft, the weird has now come to refer to a broad spectrum of artistic practices and expressions including fiction, film, television, photography, music, and visual and performance art. Largely under-theorized so far, The American Weird brings together perspectives from literary, cultural, media and film studies, and from philosophy, to provide a thorough exploration of the weird mode. Separated into two sections, the first exploring the concept of the weird and then the second how it is applied through various mediums, this book generates new approaches to fundamental questions: Can the weird be conceptualized as a generic category, as an aesthetic mode or as an epistemological position? What are the transformations it has undergone aesthetically and politically since its inception in the early 20th century? Which strands of contemporary critical theory and philosophy have engaged in a dialogue with the discourses of and on the weird? And what is specifically American about this aesthetic mode? As the first comprehensive, interdisciplinary study of the weird, this book not only explores the writings of H. P. Lovecraft, Caitlín Kiernan, Jeff VanderMeer, China Miéville and Cormac McCarthy, but also the graphic novels of Alan Moore, the music of Captain Beefheart, the television show Twin Peaks and the films of Lily Amirpour, Matthew Barney, and David Lynch. With contributions from 16 renowned, international scholars, this book provides creative, sophisticated, and innovative approaches that theoretically frame the weird based on a broad spectrum of artistic manifestations and practice.