Gothic in the Oceanic South: Maritime, Marine and Aquatic Uncanny in Southern Waters

The book explores the eerie, wondrous, and dreaded dimensions of oceans, seas, waterways, and watery forms of the oceanic South, a haunted global precinct stretching across the Pacific, Southern, and Indian Oceans, and around Australasia, Oceania, Aotearoa New Zealand, and South Africa. It examines the manifestations of these Gothic aesthetics and propensities across a range of watery spaces in vessels, ports, shorelines, journeys, strandings, and transformations, in amphibious bodies and the drowned, promoting haunted engagement with the materiality of water.

Format: Hardback
Length: 214 pages
Publication date: 05 December 2023
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd

This captivating and diverse collection of essays delves into the enigmatic, eerie, wondrous, and terrifying aspects of oceans, seas, waterways, and watery forms in the oceanic South, a haunting global precinct spanning across the Pacific, Southern, and Indian Oceans, as well as around Australasia, Oceania, Aotearoa New Zealand, and South Africa. The chapters, written by esteemed scholars, explore the contemporary fears and repressions associated with the resurgence of environmental traumas, colonial traumas, and the haunting spectres of the precolonial deep past that resurface in the present. The book examines the various manifestations of these Gothic aesthetics and propensities across a diverse range of watery spaces, including seas, oceans, waterholes, and swamps, in vessels, ports, shorelines, journeys, strandings, and transformations. It also explores the uncanny encounters with the materiality of water in amphibious bodies and the drowned, fostering a haunting engagement with the ocean's depths.

By renewing the interdisciplinary scope of Gothic criticism and highlighting the relevance of Gothic affect and sensibility to understanding the histories and cultures of the oceanic South, this collection explores the rarely considered uncanny nature of the oceans, waterways, and aqueous forms of the Southern Hemisphere. Haunted by colonial and precolonial imaginings of the Antipodes, the legacies of imperialism, and the "double vision" between Oceanic and settler-colonial epistemologies, the region is also grappling with the encroaching menace of climate change.

The collection comprises a diverse range of contributions from screen, literary, and cultural studies, environmental humanities, human geography, and creative practice in ecological sound art, and poetry. These essays examine the uncanny and the sublime in watery fictions and authentic settings of various aqueous southern forms, including ocean surfaces and depths, haunted shallows, and the eerie maritime landscapes of the oceanic South.

Through its comprehensive exploration, this collection sheds light on the complex and multifaceted relationships between humans, water, and the supernatural, offering valuable insights into the cultural, historical, and environmental dimensions of this haunted global precinct.

Weight: 571g
Dimension: 234 x 156 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781032253237