Gothic Metaphysics

• We live in the time of the Anthropocene, which calls for a paradigm shift in our relation to this planet. One of the themes of this book is to call attention to the shift. • This book is a challenge to Literary/Gothic and Cultural Studies: The case for rethinking approaches to gothic fiction is built on an extended critique of Freudian assumptions and antinomies of the occult (associated with mechanism, materialism and classical physics), a critique informed by Jung and an engaging re-evaluation of mystical, animist and alchemical modes of thought (linked to quantum physics, new materialism along with, curiously but effectively, Derridean deconstruction and cryptonomy). • Readers will benefit from the depth and breadth of the research in this book that draws upon philosophical, anthropological, psychoanalytic and scientific thought to engage with a literary genre in a way that changes how we think about Gothic Studies.

Gothic Metaphysics is a radical departure from Freudian-centred criticism of Gothic literature.Gothic Metaphysics is a radical departure from Freudian-centred criticism of Gothic literature. It aims to explore our modern dilemma in the time of the Anthropocene, by bringing to light the role of Gothic since its inception in 1764 in holding space for a worldview familiar to certain mystical traditions - such as alchemy, which held to the view of a living cosmos yet later deemed 'uncanny' and anachronistic by Freud. In developing this idea, Gothic Metaphysics explores the influence of the Middle Ages on the emergence of Gothic, seeing it as an encrypted genre that serves as the site of a 'live burial' of 'animism', which has emerged in the notion of 'quantum entanglement' best described by Carl G. Jung and physicist Wolfgang Pauli in the theory of synchronicity linking alchemy with quantum mechanics. This relationship finds itself in dialogue with the Gothic's long-held concern for the 'sentience of space and place', as described by renowned Gothic scholar Fredrick Frank. The volume Gothic Metaphysics is multi-valent and explores how Gothic has sustained the view of a sentient world despite the disqualification of nature - not only in respect to the extirpation of animism as a worldview, but also with regard to an affirmation of consciousness beyond that of human exceptionalism.