Overview

Why are so many ghost stories narrated by men - and what do these tales reveal about ideas of masculinity? Anna S. Berger explores how Victorian and Edwardian supernatural fiction reflects anxieties around imperial decline, compulsive heterosexuality, domestic instability, and shifting gender roles. From haunted houses to colonial outposts, male protagonists face spectral challenges to the imperial masculine ideal, paternal authority, and male rational control. By drawing on works by authors like Rudyard Kipling, Elizabeth Gaskell, and Arthur Conan Doyle, this study reveals the ghost story as a site where normative masculinity falters - and alternative visions of male identity emerge.

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9783837679564

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Reviews

»Anna Berger's Spectres of Masculinity is a meticulous piece of Gothic literary criticism and an extremely insightful deep dive into the ways in which popular ghost stories challenge Victorian gender roles. By drawing on a wide range of theoretical positions from Gender Studies and Queer Theory via Psychoanalysis to Postcolonial Theory and Historical Materialism, this study highlights the ways in which Victorian and Edwardian ghost stories contest the idea of a universal masculinity, and explore the intersections of hauntology, gender, and colonialism. The book delves into the ways in which haunted domesticity, the spectralization of male sexual desire, and the undermining of imperial masculinity are key themes in the ghost stories of this period. This is a must-read for anyone interested in the Gothic and its ghostly entanglements with Gender Studies.«-- ""PD Dr. Anya Heise-von der Lippe, University of Tübingen""

Author Information

Anna S. Berger is a literary scholar and journalist. She works as a postdoctoral researcher in English didactics at Universität Augsburg and as a journalist for the Schwäbische Zeitung. Previously, she was involved in journalism education at Hochschule Magdeburg-Stendal. Her research focuses on Victorian literature - particularly Gothic literature -, comics and graphic novels, as well as critical media education.

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