The Supernatural Media Virus: Virus Anxiety in Gothic Fiction Since 1990

Rahel Sixta Schmitz

Open Access Published by transcript Verlag 2021

The Supernatural Media Virus

Virus Anxiety in Gothic Fiction Since 1990

Rahel Sixta Schmitz

Volume 4 in the series Gegenwartsliteratur

https://doi.org/10.1515/9783839455593

Overview
Contents

About this book

Since the 1990s, the virus and the network metaphors have become increasingly popular, finding application in a broad range of everyday discourses, academic disciplines, and fiction genres. In this book, Rahel Sixta Schmitz defines and discusses a trope recurring in Gothic fiction: the supernatural media virus. This trope comprises the confluence of the virus, the network, and a deep, underlying media anxiety. This study shows how Gothic narratives such as House of Leaves or The Ring feature the supernatural media virus to negotiate as well as actively shape imaginations of the network society and the dangers of a globalized, technologized world.

Author / Editor information

Rahel Sixta Schmitz, born in 1991, earned her doctorate in cultural studies at the Justus Liebig University in Giessen, Germany in 2020. Her research focuses on Gothic fiction across all narrative media, especially Gothic in the late twentieth and twenty-first century.

Reviews

Besprochen in: H.P. Lovecast Podcast, 30.09.2021

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	1
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	5
List of Figures Open Access Download PDF	7
Acknowledgments Open Access Download PDF	9
Introduction: The Age of Virus Anxiety Open Access Download PDF	11
1. The Virus, the Network, and the Supernatural Media Virus Open Access Download PDF	39
2. Ghostwatch and the Advent of the Network Society Open Access Download PDF	83
3. House of Leaves, the Network Paradigm, and the Abstract Supernatural Media Virus Open Access Download PDF	115
4. The Moral Dimension of the Supernatural Media Virus in the Ring Franchise Open Access Download PDF	155
5. The Digital Supernatural Media Virus and the Network Apocalypse in Kairo and Pulse Open Access Download PDF	205
Conclusions: Future Mutations of the Supernatural Media Virus Open Access Download PDF	249
Bibliography Open Access Download PDF	269

(Deutsch)

Language: English
Publisher: transcript Verlag
Audience: Professional and scholarly;
Pages
- Main content: 290
Keywords: Horror; Media; Virus; Network Society; Literature; Film; Literary Studies; American Studies; British Studies

eBook

Published: July 27, 2021
ISBN: 9783839455593