Contemporary Gothic

Gothic images pervade contemporary culture, from popular interior decorating programmes to news stories of vampire-obsessed killers. Darkness and unease have never been more fashionable, as the media repeatedly proclaims that ‘Gothic is back’, heralding its influence in film, music, style and popular culture. Contemporary Gothic seeks to analyse this trend. Why is Gothic perennially undergoing revival? What is its role in modern consumer culture? And is its popularity – or its usefulness – drawing to an end?

Contemporary Gothic provides a sustained investigation of the role of Gothic in contemporary culture, from Buffy to Britart, theme pubs to advertising. It explores a wide range of recent material, including consumer products, fashion, fiction, film and art, within the context of a centuries-old literary and cultural tradition. Gothic walks a narrow line between comfort and outrage, mass popularity and cult appeal, the grotesque and the incorporeal, authentic self-expression and camp performance. Its very contradictions, Catherine Spooner argues, have made it so adaptable to contemporary concerns.

Inventive and accessibly written, the book will appeal to students and academics researching Gothic across a wide range of disciplines, as well as general readers with an interest in the darker side of film, TV and fiction.