Lexington Books Gothic Mash-Ups: Hybridity, Appropriation, and Intertextuality in Gothic Storytelling (Research in Horror Studies)

Gothic Mash-Ups explores the role of intertextuality in Gothic storytelling through the analysis of texts from diverse periods and media. Drawing on recent scholarship on Gothic remix and adaptation, the contributors examine crossover fictions, multi-source film and comic book adaptations, neo-Victorian pastiches, performance magic, monster mashes, and intertextual Gothic works of various kinds. Their chapters investigate many critical issues related to Gothic mash-up, including authorship, originality, intellectual property, fandom, commercialization, and canonicity. Although varied in approach, the chapters all explore how Gothic storytellers make new stories out of older ones, relying on a mix of appropriation and innovation. Covering many examples of mash-up, from nineteenth-century Gothic novels to twenty-first-century video games and interactive fiction, this collection builds from the premise that the Gothic is a fundamentally hybrid genre. Review From Penny Dreadful to Edgar Allan Poe and Dorian Gray to Get Out, Natalie Neill's wide-ranging and consistently entertaining collection considers the ubiquity, significance, and appeal of contemporary narrative mash-ups in diverse forms and media. With a stellar line-up of both established and up-and-coming scholars of the Gothic, Gothic Mash-Ups: Hybridity, Appropriation, and Intertextuality in Gothic Storytelling will be an essential resource for those interested in the intersection of the Gothic and contemporary popular culture.--Jeffrey Andrew Weinstock, professor of English, Central Michigan University; author of The Mad Scientist's Guide to Composition Gothic Mash-Ups: Hybridity, Appropriation, and Intertextuality in Gothic Storytelling is an eclectic, engaging and ambitious volume which effectively highlights the extent to which the Gothic lends itself to reinvention, hybridity, and reconfiguration.--Bernice Murphy, Trinity College Dublin This timely collection asks us to examine the wide interpretation of Gothic mix-ups and mash-ups in contemporary Gothic culture. Through its examination of postmodern retelling, hyper-text mash-ups, metafictions, and cultural recycling and recirculation of Gothic texts, characters, and comics, Natalie Neill's superb book features a wide range of compelling scholarly analyses. Including essays from established and new scholars in the field, this collection affirms, through its rich readings and insightful research, that the Gothic past continues to flourish and mutate with aplomb in the cultural present.--Sorcha Ní Fhlainn, Manchester Metropolitan University This well-structured, highly revealing, thorough, scholarly, yet always accessible collection shows how "mash-ups" intermingling once-disparate elements in many different media - yet always with visibly Gothic echoes - extend well beyond the likes of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. These revelations draw us both backward to expose how Gothic fictions have always been mash-ups and forward to detail how those mixtures have been exfoliated in comics, performance magic, video games, and a very wide range of films and texts not always recognized as mash-ups to the extent they really are. The result is a strong, expansive rewriting of the history of the Gothic that every student and fan of that mode should take account of from now on.--Jerrold E. Hogle, Professor emeritus, University of Arizona About the Author Natalie Neill is assistant professor of English at York University.