Degeneration, Normativity and the Gothic at the Fin De Si?e

This exciting new study looks at figures of degeneration and deviance in nineteenth-century science and late-Victorian Gothic fiction. The questions it raises are as relevant today as they were at the nineteenth century's fin de siecle: What constitutes the norm from which a deviation has occurred? When is a variation of the norm pronounced enough to qualify as 'pathological'? What exactly does it mean to be 'normal' or 'abnormal', and what happens if individuals find themselves on the 'wrong' side of the divide? Stephan Karschay addresses these questions through extensive readings of works by scientists such as Darwin, Lombroso, Maudsley, and Krafft-Ebing, and the most famous Gothic novels of R. L. Stevenson, Arthur Machen, Bram Stoker, Richard Marsh, Oscar Wilde and Marie Corelli.

Stephan Karschay is Lecturer in English Literature and British Cultural Studies at the University of Passau, Germany. His main research interests are the relationship between literature and science in the nineteenth century, the Gothic in literature and film, and the cultural representation of scandal.