Dragging the Gothic

Brassington, Thomas and Ferreday, Debra and Spooner, Catherine (2023) Dragging the Gothic. PhD thesis, Lancaster University.

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Abstract

Dragging the Gothic makes a case for alternative modes of queer Gothic analysis. It challenges the limitations set by current queer Gothic studies’ investment in three overlapping areas, these being: the Gothic’s capacity as a site in which queer sexualities and desires can be played out (Haggerty, 2006); how the Gothic renders queerness as monstrous (Halberstam, 1995); and how its transgressive tendencies provide an ambivalent revolutionary site in which gender and sexual minorities can overpower heteronormative oppressors (Haefele-Thomas, 2012). With what constitutes queerness in popular culture changing, my thesis increases the variety of approaches and foci available to analysis of a mode so predisposed to queer representation. I use drag to provide fresh approaches for queer Gothic studies and expose the variant ways in which queers create art and culture. I mobilise five aspects of drag performance across Dragging the Gothic’s chapters: ‘fishy’ femininities (1); camp (2); glitter (3); lipsync mixes (4); and costume reveals (5). Using these aspects of drag as critical tools enables me to apply pressure to previously assumed aspects of the Gothic (camp), position Gothic figures in new ways (femininities; glitter) and offers new queer examinations of Gothic motifs (lipsync mixes; costume reveals). In all, the thesis finds new queer theoretical positions for Gothic studies via the act of dragging, and does so to encourage new modes of queer critical analysis in the Gothic. I conclude by identifying the latent queer potential of Chris Baldick’s influential formula (1992), which serves to draw out elements of affective dispersal following Gothic disintegrations. In taking an unconventional approach to performing queer Gothic criticism, my thesis works to reinvigorate queer Gothic studies and bridge the gap between queer Gothic criticism and queer creative practices.