Gothic Realities the Impact of Horror Fiction on Modern Culture PDF L.A. Cooper Phd (HA) 2010

L. Andrew Cooper writes in *Gothic Realities*, "Gothic fictions give form to social phenomena . . . but they are not the culpable cause for the phenomena's reality" (19). This is what the central thesis of Cooper's book, an idea he traces across continents and through four centuries, from Mathew Lewis's Gothic novel The Monk (1796) to James Wan's "torture porn" film Saw (2004). Cooper's approach to literary criticism and theory is rooted in time and place, aware of cultural and historical dimensions, but not limited by an excessive reverence for geographical distinctions or historical periods. And while his work is attentive to the differing effects of various media, he does not focus on one medium at the expense of all others, moving instead deftly from Gothic novels to contemporary film, touching also on news media texts, popular non-fiction, video games, etc. He explores his central questions in a focused (and sometimes personal) way, using all the critical and theoretical tools at his disposal.