This lecture will introduce or reintroduce the Gothic, bringing up common aspects and tropes of the genre and how they relate to and influence our views of women. Using these tropes as a starting point for exploration, we will discuss how viewing women under this myopic lens not only enacts and condones prejudice, violence, and fear of women, but how this bleeds into real life consequences in our othering of women as necessary means to uphold patriarchal values.

What is feminine is important – and often used in a derogatory manner in regards to women, characters who are coded LGBTQA+, the elderly, and children. These “feminised” characters are included in the subject of othering to invalidate their experiences, emotions, and often times their autonomy and lives as they are structured to make us hate them so that the violence inflicted upon them is seen as just. Violence, abuse, illness, and death are common for “feminised” characters within the Gothic. Depictions of death often range from beautiful, to playing the role of the “emotional death” leading to the physical death of the main male protagonist.

Gothic work of women writers and artists has opened discussions on systems of abuse and mistreatment of which they were subject to and were also able to write about their own thoughts, feelings, and desires. However, many of these books still fell victim to many of the classic tropes of the Gothic.

Moving into the contemporary, we will discuss the need for the continued evolution of the genre, promoting varied voices and views to change and influence new tropes within the Gothic. As women continue to establish themselves at the forefront of the Gothic, we see how they have adapted it to regain autonomy and control over-self and how these positive changes in such a dominant genre will have a vast impact on our societal views of women.

We are committed to making our sessions as accessible as possible. If you are unable to pay the full amount for this class, please reach out to us via email at [email protected] and we will provide you with a discount code.