bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Contemporary Gothic
Authors: Armitt Lucie
Published: June 2017

Summer 2011 saw the launch of the Royal Shakespeare Company's new production ofMacbeth(dir. Michael Boyd), with Jonathan Slinger in the title role.Macbethis, of course, a play around which superstition and the sinister accrue like no other, and in this respect Boyd's production is controversial, abandoning what is arguably its most Gothic ingredient: the three witches on the heath who greet Macbeth in Act I Scene 3 and to whom he returns for evil counsel in Act IV Scene 1. In Boyd's production these hags, and their culinary experiments with “Eye of newt and toe of frog,/Wool of bat and tongue of dog” (Act IV, Scene 1, 14–15), disappear and are replaced by fearful apparitions of more familiar proportions. So the play opens with three children's corpses being lowered from the fly loft on wires. As they descend they start to kick and it is only then that the audience recognizes them to be “undead” children, lowered like the half‐lynched. These are Macduff's “pretty ones” (Act IV, Scene 3, 217), slaughtered by the “butcher and his fiend‐like queen” (Act V, Scene 11, 35), and their presence collectively embodies the slaughter of innocents returned to haunt. Just as they refuse to “play dead” in the opening scene, so does child's play remain an important part of the theatrical spectacle. Dolls frequently accompany the child actors and, in order to embody Banquo's lineage of kings, myriad toy puppets descend from the rafters. Far more chilling to a twenty‐first‐century audience, as the children confront Macbeth they keen in a nursery‐rhyme tone: “Macbe‐eth!” “Macbe‐eth!”
C
rowley,
A
leister
Authors: Freeman Nick
Published: June 2017

Edward Alexander Crowley (1875–1947) was the most famous British occultist of the twentieth century (see
occultism
). The son of a wealthy brewer who was also a member of the evangelical Plymouth Brethren, Crowley's early years were marred by his mother's antipathy: she called him the “Great Beast,” an allusion to the Book of Revelation. Crowley regarded his demonic title as a badge of rank, rebelling against his Christian upbringing and changing his name to “Aleister,” a version of Shelley's “Alastor, or the Spirit of Solitude” but given a modish Celtic twist (Decker 2011). He attended Cambridge University in the mid‐1890s, leaving without a degree but possibly having encountered the papers of the Elizabethan magus John Dee, then being catalogued by M. R. James (see
james, m. r. (montague rhodes)
). There is no evidence that James and Crowley met, however.
Curse
Authors: Edwards Justin D.
Published: June 2017

We do not generally associate opera with the Gothic (see
opera
). But in 1853 the Italian composer Giuseppe Verdi wrote an opera that included a power‐crazy, womanizing Duke; a vengeful, corrupt hunchback; a young, innocent woman who is abducted, raped, and brutally murdered; and a corpse wrapped up in a sack. This work became known as
Rigoletto
but its original title was “The Curse” (La Maledizione). And it is a curse that motivates much of the opera's action, for in the first scene the Duke and Rigoletto (the hunchback) are cursed by Count Monterone, who has been dishonored by the two men. The curse terrifies Rigoletto; it inspires him to hire an assassin, and then to seek revenge on the Duke, who has abducted his daughter, Gilda. But Rigoletto's plot backfires and Gilda is murdered, stuffed into a sack, and given to the hunchback. He opens the sack and, to his despair, discovers his mortally wounded daughter. For a moment, she revives and declares she is glad to die for she has deceived her father by loving the Duke. She dies in his arms. Rigoletto's wildest fear materializes when he cries out in horror, “The curse!”
Dreams
Authors: Berthin Christine
Published: June 2017

The Nightmare
, exhibited in 1782 at the Royal Academy, brought Fuseli immediate fame. The painting epitomizes the changing role and meaning of dreams under the influence of scientific, medical, and philosophical developments (see
medicine and the gothic
). At the dawn of the nineteenth century, the perception of the world and the self could no longer be attributed to the senses only. The boundaries of the self receded as more and more phenomena previously seen as supernatural were assigned to a new but as yet unexplored place in the psyche.
The Nightmare
records precisely this historical shift from a supernatural to a psychological origin and interpretation of dreams. It juxtaposes in the same space both the traditional explanation of the dream as the external visitation of a supernatural being, the incubus, lying heavily upon the dreamer's body, with the more troubling suggestion that the dream emanates from her psyche and emerges in the figure of a mysterious, unrecognized double, the mare (see
doubles
). The painting also marks a turning point in the relationship between art, literature, and dreams. If around 1782, according to Fuseli, “one of the most unexplored regions of art are dreams and what may be called the personification of sentiment” (1831: 145), the nineteenth century places dreams at the core of the Gothic literary experience.
EuropeanGothic
Authors: Billiani Francesca
Published: June 2017

The Gothic can be described as a hybrid genre and a mode of writing that seeks to destabilize paradigms of realism, rationality, and morality by using the past as a mirror for the present. Assessments of Gothic literature have considered its appeal to readers as well as its subversive potential since “it resonates as much with the anxieties and fears concerning the crises and changes in the present as with any terrors of the past” (Botting 2000: 3). Moreover, as David Punter has pointed out, “the Gothic itself […] consists of a series of texts which are always dependent on other texts,” thus deferring any classification and multiplying hermeneutic possibilities. Gothic has also been depicted as a literature of distortion (Punter 2000: x) which, by building its appeal to readers on its ability to allude to other texts, creates a plethora of intertextual references. It is precisely this complex array of both overt and indirect borrowings which generates varied patterns of reading, cutting across mixed social formations, national borders and assorted aesthetic taste, and thereby constituting what we could call the “European Gothic.”
Film,French
Authors: Ménégaldo Gilles
Published: June 2017

The Gothic is considered to be a minor aspect of French cinema that is rarely mentioned in books devoted to the genre. The two most famous French directors in the field, Robert Florey and Jacques Tourneur, made their careers in Hollywood, while Roman Polanski, also famous for his Gothic/horror films (TheFearless Vampire Killers(1967),Rosemary's Baby(1968),The Tenant1976)), is considered to be a French filmmaker, though he is of Polish origin. However, a number of French films employ Gothic settings, themes, narrative props, and images. Supernatural creatures (devils and ghosts) or phenomena that subvert natural laws are used to convey a poetic, dreamy, or horrific mood. Perceptual or intellectual uncertainty mostly prevail over explicit and horrific exhibition of monsters, hence the termfantastique, often used to define this cinema.
F
rench
G
othic
Authors: Hale Terry
Published: June 2017

The term “Gothic” is a peculiarly Anglocentric one which has no direct equivalent in French or, indeed, most other European languages. This was true even in the heyday of the British Gothic novel in the late eighteenth century and first two decades of the nineteenth century when the genre, which gave rise to a considerable number of French translations, adaptations, and imitations, seems to have lacked a precise appellation (though it is not inconceivable that the term
roman noir
was employed by one or two literary specialists). The Marquis de Sade, who published an important survey of the development of the novel in 1800, simply describes such works as English novels. Over the course of the next two decades, French readers would, no doubt, have increasingly viewed the same works as historical novels. Balzac, who published a couple of “Gothic” potboilers in his youth (notably,
Le Centenaire; ou, les deux Beringheld
[the Centenarian, or the two Beringhelds] issued under the pseudonym Horace de Saint‐Aubin in 1822), and whose later work is imbued with “Gothic” qualities, wisely avoids the issue, referring simply to works in the style of Ann Radcliffe throughout his vast opus.
Friday the 13th
(1980)
Authors: Blake Linnie
Published: June 2017

A low budget offering that recouped more than ten times the estimated $550 000 it cost to make in its opening weekend alone (International Movie Database), Sean S. Cunningham's
Friday the 13th
(1980) spawned eleven film sequels, a television series, and a number of novels and graphic novels. Alongside extensive merchandising, these would in time make the serial killer Jason Voorhees a cult figure. He barely appears in the first film, however, having drowned at summer camp in 1957 due to the negligence of sexually promiscuous staff. This is the traumatic event that provokes his now‐psychotic mother to return to the ostensibly idyllic Camp Crystal Lake to wreak her bloody revenge on a new generation of young people preparing for its 1979 reopening.
G
erman Expressionism
Authors: Hand Richard J.
Published: June 2017

Expressionism is a term that developed in the visual arts in Germany shortly before World War I. In effect, Expressionism was an avant‐garde movement under the broad umbrella of cultural modernity that aligned itself in opposition to traditional “realism,” especially as embodied in Impressionism. Impressionist art, centrally associated with French painting, strove to capture vividly the surface reality of the world. In contrast, the Expressionist artist is less interested in the veracity of objective perception than in the exploration of subjective emotions and in the revelation of inner reality. Consequently, Expressionist art does not present a fixed style and, unlike other modernist movements like Surrealism or Futurism, it does not adhere to a specific manifesto. Expressionism is more of an attitude or even a spirit: it utilizes styles that can be distorted and alienating, juxtaposing formal techniques and jettisoning conventional colors and composition in order to locate a more profound “truth.” Expressionism may have begun in the visual arts but it extended its influence across culture more broadly and the term can be used in relation to literature, theater, architecture, and music. To this end, the definitions of the movement, let alone its characteristics, are often opaque and even misleading.
G
erman
G
othic
Authors: Murnane Barry
Published: June 2017

Since the “spirited exchange” (Horner 2002) between different national literatures that produced the Gothic in the 1780s and 1790s, Germany and its
Schauerroman
have occupied a privileged, albeit vilified position. For earliest critics, such as Jane Austen or the
Anti‐Jacobin
, Gothic fiction was synonymous with an image of Germany as the depraved site of necromancy, secret societies, and wanton violence. Through writers such as E. T. A. Hoffmann, this continued to be the case well into the nineteenth century, as Poe's famous dictum in his preface to
Tales of the Grotesque and the Arabesque
(“Terror is not of Germany but of the soul”) suggests. Despite a renaissance around 1900, the Expressionist film is the last example of German Gothic that can claim real international relevance.
Gothic 1900 to 1950
Authors: Foley Matt
Published: June 2017

A consideration of how the Gothic literary mode manifests itself between 1900 and 1950 involves a number of threads that challenge, question, complement, overlap, and oppose each other. Strangely, it is the work of a writer often thought of as beyond categorization that provides a way into untangling these threads. InSupernatural Horror in Literature(1935), H. P. Lovecraft dedicates his final chapter to eulogizing the “masters” of the contemporary tale of horror. He begins by suggesting that
Grotesque, The
Authors: Parrino Maria
Published: June 2017

The grotesque deals with distorted or unnatural forms set in an extravagant arrangement aiming at a disturbing comic effect. The historical development of the term, however, shows that the word has had different uses. A noun from the Italian
grotto
, which means “small cavern,” the word dates back to the fifteenth century and was first used of paintings found in Roman ruins of the Christian era. The discovery of Nero's villa, the Domus Aurea, revealed the existence of ornamental paintings that decorated the walls of the rooms; because they were completely buried, it was necessary to create holes in the ceilings in order to have access to the underground grottoes. The grotesque artistic mode of the Roman period referred to a decorative technique that combined interwoven human, animal, and vegetable elements in a way that infringed the usual picture of the natural world. The murals, which were called
grottesche
, were copied and reinvented by Raphael and his pupils in their decoration of the Vatican loggias. Vasari (1511–74) condemned the fashion of covering walls with monsters following Vitruvius (circa 80–15
bce
), who had criticized the style as it disregarded the realistic reproduction of the familiar world, transgressed proportion, and neglected the laws of nature. The discovery, the technique, and the judgment of the grotesque have much in common with the Gothic, a genre that is similarly characterized by unearthing mysterious secrets, representing hybrid creatures, and generating controversial appraisals.
Incest
Authors: Kahan Jeffrey
Published: June 2017

In Horace Walpole's Gothic play
The Mysterious Mother
(1768), the widowed Countess of Narbonne slips into bed with her son – who thinks he is sleeping with yet another woman. Years later, he ends up marrying Adeliza, the child of his union with his mother. The author thought that this plot was so horrid that he limited the print run to just fifty copies and distributed it only to close friends: “I thought it [the subject matter] would shock, rather than give satisfaction, to an audience” (Walpole 2003: 251). The reader, however, can quickly discern that Walpole does not see incest as merely aesthetically unpleasant; the fact that he shared the play among a close/incestuous circle suggests that incest can also be a stand‐in for other activities – including, in the case of the play's cautious distribution, an inner circle that rejects widely accepted social norms. Indeed, as Karl Zender explains in his essay on Faulkner, incest can be linked not only to an oedipal anxiety – a son's love for his mother – but also to any number of antiauthoritarian acts (2002: 175). As a further example of oedipal anxiety, we may turn to Donatien Alphonse François' (the Marquis de Sade) “Eugénie de Franval: A Tragic Tale” (1800), in which a father raises his daughter as his spiritual and sexual partner but demands that she refer to him as “brother,” and “would not have his daughter call him by any other names” (Sade 2005: 246). Monsieur de Franval's demand suggests that sibling incest is somehow less egregious than parent‐sibling coupling. The opposite is true in Mary Shelley's
Frankenstein
(1818): Victor's creation of life without sexual union can be read as an attempt to avoid incestuous contact with both his betrothed Elizabeth (his cousin in the 1818 edition; his adopted sister in the 1831 edition) and, symbolically, his mother – Victor's mother dies from the scarlet fever she contracts while nursing Elizabeth through the same; before she dies, she holds both Victor and Elizabeth by the hand and makes them swear they will marry each other: “Elizabeth, my love, you must supply my place” (Shelley 1994: 26).
I
reland,
W
illiam
H
enry
Authors: Kahan Jeffrey
Published: June 2017

William Henry Ireland (1775–1835), English novelist and poet, will forever be known as the boy who forged Shakespeare. In late 1794, Ireland, then only nineteen years old, claimed he had discovered a trunk of Shakespearean documents, which included legal papers, love letters, lost poems, portraits, correspondences, and a series of lost plays – among them,
Vortigern
, which was staged at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane on April 2, 1796. Much of the audience was openly hostile; heckling and hissing broke out in the fifth act, and, at final curtain, further performances were immediately canceled. Soon after, Ireland stepped forward, admitting that he had authored the play and the documents. Rather than being hailed as a genius, Ireland was blacklisted from the theater.
I
rish
G
othic
Authors: Killeen Jarlath
Published: June 2017

“Irish Gothic” is a nebulous term that covers a very large amount of writing emanating from, relating to, written in and/or about Ireland in the modern period. There is much debate over when Irish Gothic “emerged” (if that is the right word – see McCormack 1991, Backus 1999, Killeen 2005 for different approaches to the question of beginnings); what texts should be included in an examination of the area; and even whether Irish Gothic is a “tradition,” “genre,” or “mode” (see McCormack, 1991; Killeen 2006; Haslam 2007a, 2007b). Irish literary history is still a rather underdeveloped field. Although the masterpieces of Irish modernism (see
modernism
) have received a great deal of critical attention, the fame of W. B. Yeats, James Joyce, and Samuel Beckett have rather distracted consideration away from other writers and areas in serious need of detailed socioliterary mapping. Irish realism has, perhaps, suffered most seriously from neglect (see John Wilson Foster 2008 for a rectifying of this gap; for a good indication of the amount of realism published in this period, see Loeber and Loeber 2006). In tandem with – and probably contributing to – the disregard of Irish realism, there has been a relatively strong interest in Irish “nonrealism,” of which tradition the Gothic is a major component, although this attention has mostly been directed toward a few major practitioners such as Charles Maturin, Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu (see
le fanu, joseph sheridan
), Oscar Wilde, and Bram Stoker (see
stoker, bram
), ignoring “minor” figures such as Regina Maria Roche, Stephen Cullen, or Anne Fuller. In fact, Irish Gothic may be the one area of Irish fiction, besides modernism, to have received due attention, and this needs some explaining.
Liminality
Authors: Garner Katie
Published: June 2017

The term “liminality” is employed by critics of the Gothic to refer to spaces or bodies situated either on or at the recognized borders or boundaries of subjective existence. In eighteenth‐century Gothic writing, these thresholds are predominantly encountered through liminal spaces (e.g., wild mountain ranges, hidden tombs, secret rooms). From the nineteenth century onward, the human body has increasingly become a liminal site where normative boundaries are challenged; the monster, vampire, and werewolf are all liminal beings.
Manga
Authors: Inouye Charles
Published: June 2017

The
“man
,

” of manga has a wide range of meaning: involuntary, without authority or reason, arbitrary, superfluous, and reckless. There is, therefore, something potentially Gothic, or nonstandard, about these pictures (
ga
,

) that tend toward both caricature and monstrosity (see
monstrosity
). Often narrative or declarative in thrust, manga have frequently nurtured a symbiosis between words and pictures that traditionally flowed from the soft, pointed brush (
fude
) that rendered both text and image. Established anciently, this symbiosis survived the separation of word and image that occurred during the modern era and survives today as a salient aspect of postmodern culture in its graphic splendor (see
contemporary gothic
).
Masks, Veils, and Disguises
Authors: Spooner Catherine
Published: June 2017

Masks, veils, and disguises are ubiquitous features of Gothic texts, both arising as common props at the level of plot and driving a generic concern with surfaces. Masks and veils simultaneously reveal and conceal; they foreground the interface between inside and outside, the seen and unseen, the self and the world. Warwick and Cavallaro suggest that “masks and veils intensify the enigmatic character of clothes as structures that are capable of both hiding and disclosing bodily attributes and desires” (1998: 128). The predominance of masks, veils, and other kinds of clothes that mimic their functions in Gothic texts indicates a repeated concern with bodily boundaries, transitional states, and epistemological uncertainty.
McC
abe,
P
atrick
Authors: McWilliams Ellen
Published: June 2017

The work of Patrick McCabe (1955–) demonstrates a Gothic sensibility that is fundamental to his engagement with twentieth‐century Irish history and politics. McCabe's work is sometimes categorized as “Bog Gothic” because of the macabre and gruesome content of his novels and his preferred setting of small town, rural Ireland (see
irish gothic
). Most of McCabe's narrators are maniacal outsiders cut off and excluded from mainstream society. The overriding narrative voice of McCabe's fiction is that of the madman whose stories of life in Ireland, north and south of the border, take the form of Gothic fairy tales.
Mummies
Authors: Thomas Ardel
Published: June 2017

From the moment European explorers discovered ancient Egyptian embalming practices, the figure of the mummy captivated the science community as well as the general public; this interest in the Egyptian dead quickly led to the mummy's becoming a stock character in Gothic horror. Similar to the undead vampire (see
vampire fiction
) in literature and film, the mummy transfixes and terrifies because once the sarcophagus is opened and the figure revealed, there is the possibility that the remains will come to life and wreak havoc.
N
ew
Z
ealand Gothic
Authors: Jones Timothy
Published: June 2017

The most distinct feature of the New Zealand Gothic might be the critical and popular difficulty in defining what the category describes, and which texts belong within it. Where other national Gothics offer more or less settled cores of texts that illustrate their character, New Zealand has yet to describe its own Gothic canon. The exact significance and dimension – the shape – of New Zealand's Gothic is still being negotiated in both critical and popular discourse. Nevertheless, there is a distinct division between the nation's colonial and postcolonial‐era Gothics, and a growing sense that the genre speaks to New Zealand's unquiet history.
N
odier,
C
harles
Authors: Gibson Matthew
Published: June 2017

Jean Charles Emmanuel Nodier (1780–1844) was a librarian and naturalist who was also one of the early exponents of the Gothic and of
Romantisme
in post‐Napoleonic France (see
european gothic
). He is best known for stirring French interest in the Slavic world, for promoting the vampire as a literary theme in France, for his defense of the fantastic as both a literary mode and a philosophical tool, and for the quite shameless reinvention of his life through some eight “Souvenirs,” all written to mutual contradiction in middle to later life.
O
doevsky,
V
ladimir
Authors: Cornwell Neil
Published: June 2017

Vladimir (or V. F.) Odoevsky (stressed “Odóevsky,” as opposed to “Dostoévsky”) (1804?–69) was a central figure in nineteenth‐century Russian culture for nearly half a century. From something of an “angry young man” in the early 1820s, coediting the thrusting almanac
Mnemozina
(
Mnemosyne
), he experienced a flourishing period as a leading Romantic writer of mystical and Gothic leanings, before maturing into an overconscientious public servant and an indefatigable philanthropist. At the end of his life he was a Moscow senator, a leading musicologist, a keen amateur scientist, and a would‐be court historian. Earlier, he had also been a theorist of Romantic aesthetics, a cultural thinker, an important music critic, a prominent popular educator, and even a culinary columnist. Despite his aristocratic lineage (as a “prince,” or
kniaz
, his family was traceable back to Rurik), he depended financially on his government salary and publishing royalties. Commentators have dubbed him “the Russian Hoffmann,” “the philosopher‐prince,” “a Russian Faust,” and even “the Russian Goethe.”
P
olidori,
J
ohn
Authors: Carver Stephen
Published: June 2017

John Polidori (1795–1821) was a promising writer who died tragically young. His reputation has suffered at the pens of the Byron circle, of which he was briefly a member, and their biographers (see
romanticism
). He is best known for his story
The Vampyre
(1819), which created the modern myth of the aristocratic undead – Polidori's Lord Ruthven set the standard decades before Count Dracula landed at Whitby.
Postcolonial Gothic
Authors: Wisker Gina
Published: June 2017

Postcolonial Gothic combines two complex, contested terms. Postcolonial is variously understood as referring to the period after colonialism, and undercutting and operating against the values of colonialism, in dispute with colonial rule, and exposing its contradictions. Its strains are found in colonial periods (Tiffin and Ashcroft 1989) as in the critique of theft of life and land, “heads on sticks” colonialism's insanities in Joseph Conrad's modernist
Heart of Darkness
(1902), and Katherine Mansfield's New Zealand Gothic (see
new zealand gothic
). David Punter (2000) argues that postcolonial experience is inevitably haunted by a colonial past; the repressed return (like ghosts); and traces of the legacy of silence, pain, humiliation, and dispossession that reappear in spectral figures:
Psychological Thrillers
Authors: Pittard Christopher
Published: June 2017

The psychological thriller has a twofold relationship to the Gothic. The first is in terms of its generic history as a literary relation of detective fiction, a genre created out of a rationalist approach to the more supernaturally inflected mysteries of the Gothic (the crucial figure being Edgar Allan Poe, who worked in both genres). Whereas the detective story focused on the rational explanation of events and narrative closure (deconstructionist accounts of the genre notwithstanding), the psychological thriller concerns itself more with questions of subjectivity and the psychological basis for transgression, and makes no guarantees regarding narrative resolution. The second relation lies in the very terminology of the genre. The fascination of Gothic fiction with interiority and subjectivity (reflected in the predominance of psychoanalytic criticism of the genre), combined with an intended readerly response of shock and awe, immediately makes Gothic fiction a psychological thriller, if not the more narrowly defined “psychological thriller.” Thus, when Sally Munt identifies the characteristics of the genre as “a dissolving sense of reality; reticence in moral pronouncements; obsessive, pathological characters; the narrative privileging of complex, tortured relationships” (Munt 1994: 20), she also provides a good working definition of the literary Gothic.
Queer Gothic
Authors: Fincher Max
Published: June 2017

“Queer Gothic” is a relatively new term in Gothic studies that has arisen from recent critical theory, in particular the intersection between feminism, deconstruction, and queer theory. Readings of Gothic texts as queer texts range from the eighteenth century to contemporary narratives.
R
eynolds,
G. W. M.
(
G
eorge
W
illiam
M
acArthur)
Authors: Bennett Mark
Published: June 2017

Remembered by a contemporary obituary as “the most popular writer of our time” (G. W. M. Reynolds 1879) and yet, until recently, forgotten by the majority of readers and critics, the career of G. W. M. Reynolds (1814–79) is appropriately marked by contrasts. His writings enjoyed a phenomenal circulation, yet their sensationalism and association with the populist tastes of an emergent mass reading public limited their cultural visibility. His successes often adapted others' works, yet Reynolds nevertheless cultivated a distinct authorship that coalesced into a formidable brand identity (King 2008: 55). He was a well‐known political agitator – addressing multiple Chartist meetings in 1848 and editing the radical
Reynolds's Weekly Newspaper
between 1850 and 1862 – yet his literary sensationalism alienated contemporaries, and subsequent critics have found the reconciliation of Reynolds' fiction and politics equally challenging (Carver 2008: 159–61).
R
ohmer,
S
ax
Authors: Witchard Anne
Published: June 2017

Sax Rohmer (1883–1959) was the pen‐name of Arthur Henry Ward, best remembered for his series of novels featuring the villainous Chinese mastermind Dr. Fu Manchu. Rohmer's evil genius possesses “all the cruel cunning of an entire Eastern race, accumulated in one giant intellect,” and, “with all the resources of science, past and present,” plots world domination from his hidden lair concealed deep within the fog‐bound labyrinth of London's Limehouse Chinatown (1913: 84). The fiction of the late‐Victorian Gothic revival asserts that the greatest threat to Britain and its empire lurked within the imperial metropolis itself (see
imperial gothic
). Along with Count Dracula and the werewolves, mummies, and other monsters of fin‐de‐siècle London, Dr. Fu Manchu has become an enduring icon of the Gothic.
Urban Gothic
Authors: Alder Emily
Published: June 2017

“Urban Gothic” categorizes texts in which the topography and social infrastructure of the metropolis shape the Gothic affect of the narrative. The industrial or postindustrial city often becomes a dark, claustrophobic, and labyrinthine space, haunted by doubles, secrets, and traces of the past, refracting personal, social, or political concerns onto the urban terrain. In the nineteenth century, the Gothic mode originating with eighteenth‐century writers such as Horace Walpole and Ann Radcliffe diversified; as urban populations increased with industrialization, Gothic tropes found new loci in city environments. Urban streets, buildings, and institutions replaced castles, mountains, and abbeys as sites of terror and the uncanny, which were brought home from distant times or exotic lands to these modern, domestic locations.
Vampire Fiction
Authors: Chromik Anna
Published: June 2017

Vampire fiction is a subgenre of the Gothic, although contemporary vampire literature mixes Gothic elements with other genres, such as horror, sci‐fi, fantasy, and even romance novel. The vampire myth, derived from Slavic folklore, made its remarkable literary appearance in the late eighteenth century. The gloomy and mysterious atmospheres of the Gothic novel shaped vampiric imagery in its two crucial aspects: the construction of the vampire as the Gothic villain and the construction of the setting of the classic vampire novel.
W
ells,
H. G.
(
H
erbert
G
eorge)
Authors: Parrinder Patrick
Published: June 2017

Herbert George Wells (1866–1946) is known as one of the two great pioneers of modern science fiction and as a lifelong campaigner for a peaceful, rational world order based on scientific principles (see
science and the gothic
). He was trained as a scientist and taught biology for a few years before ill health forced him to seek a living from fiction and journalism. His first book was a biology textbook, and much of his later writing, including his best‐selling
Outline of History
(1920), has a broadly educational purpose. As his
Experiment in Autobiography
(1934) makes clear, it was not as a contributor to the tradition of Gothic fantasy that he most wished to be remembered. Nevertheless, he owes his lasting influence as a novelist to the fact that, as a reviewer of the serial version of
The Time Machine
(1895) put it, he was a visionary with “an imagination as gruesome as that of Poe” (Parrinder 1972: 33).
W
heatley,
D
ennis
Authors: Wisker Gina
Published: June 2017

The wartime slogan “keep calm and carry on” suggests both the certainties of a socially cohesive body (the British nation under fire in World War II) and the expectation of unquestioning compliance with the (recognizably right, undoubtedly shared) values of public good. The once extremely popular horror of Dennis Wheatley (1897–1977) easily identifies those of the Left and the Right Hand ways (the left is the bad one – sold to the Powers of Darkness), ensuring that, after episodes of occult activity, adventure, and chivalry, order is restored. His introductions warn against Satanism and its repercussions while he insists on disbelief in the satanic. Wheatley's horror, with its investment in and certainty about the defensive power of crucifixes, Britishness, manly action, and health both represented and embedded itself in the British psyche of a particular period. His was a solid, upper‐middle‐class life, and his values of conservatism sit oddly in the context of the advances in popular fiction, particularly Gothic horror, to which he made a significant contribution.
Writing for Engagement
Authors: Wurr Adrian J.
Published: June 2017

Service‐learning is defined as a type of experiential education that provides opportunities for language and cultural learning. Common forms of community‐based writing include writing
for
,
about
, or
with
community partners. Reflection prompts to enhance learning outcomes are discussed along with suggestions for enhancing students' civic literacy skills.
Platelet activation by crushed and uncrushed muscle: a flow cytometry analysis
Authors: Jukes Alistair , Miljkovic Dijana , Wormald P.J. , Psaltis Alkis J.
Published: June 2017

Background

Crushed autologous muscle is used in skull base surgery in the acute phase of major arterial hemorrhage to stop bleeding. The mechanism of this is not yet clear, but is thought to involve the formation of a platelet plug, which seals the vessel wall defect but still allows ongoing blood flow to the brain.

Methods

In this study we use flow cytometry to replicate the in‐vivo actions of crushed muscle on platelets in whole blood. We compare the ratio of activation of platelets exposed to crushed and uncrushed muscle supernatant in control patients and in patients on antiplatelet agents.

Results

Crushed muscle activated platelets to a higher degree than uncrushed muscle: 5.18‐fold greater in control blood (p = 0.002); 6.53‐fold greater in aspirin‐exposed blood (p < 0.0001); and 9.4‐fold greater in clopidogrel‐exposed blood (p < 0.0001).

Conclusion

Crushed muscle caused a consistently increased ratio of platelet activation when compared with uncrushed muscle across all groups, adding to the evidence that at least part of its clinical effect is the result of platelet activation.
Third molar transplantation combined with an osteotome sinus lift – two case reports
Authors: Yamamoto Katsuki , Osamu Yoshinaga , Kakura Kae , Yamamoto Kazuko , Kido Hirofumi
Published: June 2017

Key Clinical Message

We report here on our application of the socket lift technique to create a transplant socket for the transplanted maxillary molar. These outcomes suggest that this technique is likely to be effective for tooth transplantation when the maxillary sinus bottom is close to the alveolar crest.
Block‐Copolymer‐Assisted Electrochemical Synthesis of Mesoporous Gold Electrodes: Towards a Non‐Enzymatic Glucose Sensor
Authors: Nugraha Asep Sugih , Li Cuiling , Bo Jiang , Iqbal Muhammad , Alshehri Saad M. , Ahamad Tansir , Malgras Victor , Yamauchi Yusuke , Asahi Toru
Published: June 2017

Sensing technology for biomolecules has played a key role for maintaining a high quality of life. Various kinds of sensing techniques have been developed for detecting biomolecules. Among the detection techniques which have been reported so far, non‐enzymatic glucose detection, based on electrochemical mechanisms, has attracted great interest as a facile route for monitoring glucose levels in the blood. In this method, designing nanostructured electrodes is a promising strategy to improve detection performance. Owing to their fascinating physicochemical properties, including superior electrical and electrocatalytic properties, mesoporous metal films offer a wide range of useful applications which cannot be achieved by other mesoporous materials. In this work, mesoporous Au films (MpGFs) are synthesized by an effective and simple electrochemical process in the presence of a surfactant, where the mesoporous structure can be controlled by the size of the polymeric micelles. The micelles are removed using a tetrahydrofuran‐based solvent‐extraction method. The activity of MpGFs towards glucose oxidation is evaluated under a fixed potential in alkaline solution. Under optimal potentials, the current response for other interfering molecules is minimal, while the current response for glucose is maximal. A linear relationship between the current response and the glucose content is observed over a wide range of concentrations. Thus, our MpGF shows an excellent performance for electrochemical glucose sensing applications.
Fabrication of Redox‐Responsive Degradable Capsule Particles by a Shell‐Selective Photoinduced Cross‐Linking Approach from Spherical Polymer Particles
Authors: Kitayama Yukiya , Takeuchi Toshifumi
Published: June 2017

In this study, a fabrication route towards functional capsule particles was successfully developed by means of a self‐templating shell‐selective cross‐linking strategy that enables us to prepare shell‐cross‐linked hollow polymer particles directly from homogeneous spherical polymer particles. To prepare redox‐responsive degradable capsule particles, a newly designed monomer bearing a photoinduced post‐cross‐linking group (cinnamoyl group) and a redox‐environment‐responsive cleavable group (disulfide group), N‐cinnamoyl‐N′‐methyacryloylcystamine (MCC), was synthesized. Redox‐responsive degradable capsule particles were successfully prepared from homogeneous spherical poly(MCC)‐based particles by a self‐templating shell‐selective photoinduced cross‐linking approach. Moreover, the cargo loading capability of the shell‐cross‐linked hollow particles was confirmed through a solvent exchange procedure using dyes, polymer precursors and anticancer reagents. Furthermore, redox‐responsive degradability of the capsule polymer particles was also confirmed by adding a reducing agent for cleavage of the disulfide linkage. We hope that the efficient fabrication route of functional capsule particles directly from spherical polymer particles opens efficient routes for the fabrication of a wide range of capsule particles; in particular, this technique is robust, productive, and facile because neither additional sacrificial template particles nor toxic solvents are required.
Effect of bed material, lignin content, and origin on the processability of biomass in fast pyrolysis reactors
Authors: Lago Valentina , Briens Cedric , Berruti Franco
Published: June 2017

Lignin has great potential for the production of valuable aromatic compounds and has attracted considerable attention. The development of high value applications for Kraft lignin would boost the profitability of pulp and paper operations. A potential solution is the pyrolytic conversion of lignin to valuable liquids and solids. However, Kraft lignin is a thermally sensitive powder which tends to agglomerate under pyrolysis conditions. A mechanically fluidized reactor (MFR) can be used to monitor both the generation of vapours and gas during pyrolysis and how cohesive a feedstock becomes when pyrolyzed. The MFR was, therefore, used to evaluate alternative solutions to improve Kraft lignin behaviour by mixing it with non‐problematic feedstocks or by modifying its bed material. Finally, Kraft lignin behaviour and products were compared to those of hydrolysis lignins from different origins.
Floral scent and species divergence in a pair of sexually deceptive orchids
Authors: Gervasi Daniel D. L. , Selosse Marc‐Andre , Sauve Mathieu , Francke Wittko , Vereecken Nicolas J. , Cozzolino Salvatore , Schiestl Florian P.
Published: June 2017

Speciation is typically accompanied by the formation of isolation barriers between lineages. Commonly, reproductive barriers are separated into pre‐ and post‐zygotic mechanisms that can evolve with different speed. In this study, we measured the strength of different reproductive barriers in two closely related, sympatric orchids of theOphrys insectiferagroup, namelyOphrys insectiferaandOphrys aymoniniito infer possible mechanisms of speciation. We quantified pre‐ and post‐pollination barriers through observation of pollen flow, by performing artificial inter‐ and intraspecific crosses and analyzing scent bouquets. Additionally, we investigated differences in mycorrhizal fungi as a potential extrinsic factor of post‐zygotic isolation. Our results show that floral isolation mediated by the attraction of different pollinators acts apparently as the sole reproductive barrier between the two orchid species, with later‐acting intrinsic barriers seemingly absent. Also, the two orchids share most of their fungal mycorrhizal partners in sympatry, suggesting little or no importance of mycorrhizal symbiosis in reproductive isolation. Key traits underlying floral isolation were two alkenes and wax ester, present predominantly in the floral scent ofO. aymoninii. These compounds, when applied to flowers ofO. insectifera, triggered attraction and a copulation attempt of the bee pollinator ofO. aymoniniiand thus led to the (partial) breakdown of floral isolation. Based on our results, we suggest that adaptation to different pollinators, mediated by floral scent, underlies species isolation in this plant group. Pollinator switches may be promoted by low pollination success of individuals in dense patches of plants, an assumption that we also confirmed in our study.
The Euphausia superba transcriptome database, SuperbaSE: An online, open resource for researchers
Authors: Hunt Benjamin J. , Özkaya Özge , Davies Nathaniel J. , Gaten Edward , Seear Paul , Kyriacou Charalambos P. , Tarling Geraint , Rosato Ezio
Published: June 2017

Antarctic krill (Euphausia superba) is a crucial component of the Southern Ocean ecosystem, acting as the major link between primary production and higher trophic levels with an annual predator demand of up to 470 million tonnes. It also acts as an ecosystem engineer, affecting carbon sequestration and recycling iron and nitrogen, and has increasing importance as a commercial product in the aquaculture and health industries. Here we describe the creation of a de novo assembled head transcriptome for E. superba. As an example of its potential as a molecular resource, we relate its exploitation in identifying and characterizing numerous genes related to the circadian clock in E. superba, including the major components of the central feedback loop. We have made the transcriptome openly accessible for a wider audience of ecologists, molecular biologists, evolutionary geneticists, and others in a user‐friendly format at SuperbaSE, hosted at www.krill.le.ac.uk.
The evolution of mutualism with modifiers
Authors: Quickfall Christopher G. , Marshall James A. R.
Published: June 2017

Mutualisms are widespread, yet their evolution has received less theoretical attention than within‐species social behaviors. Here, we extend previous models of unconditional pairwise interspecies social behavior, to consider selection for donation but also for donation‐suppressing modifiers. We present conditions under which modifiers that suppress costly donation receive either positive or negative selection; assortment only at the donation locus always leads to selection for donation suppression, as in within‐species greenbeard traits. However, genomewide assortment with modifier loci can lead to intermediate levels of donation, and these can differ in the two species even when payoffs from donation are additive and symmetric. When costly donation between species can evolve without being suppressed, we argue that it is most appropriately explained by indirect fitness benefits within the donating species, using partner species as vectors for altruism. Our work has implications for identifying both the stability and the ultimate beneficiaries of social behavior between species.
Short-term atrazine exposure at breeding has no impact on Blanchard's cricket frog (Acris blanchardi) reproductive success
Authors: Hoskins Tyler D. , Dellapina Maria , Boone Michelle D.
Published: June 2017

Studies of endocrine-disrupting contaminants have focused on early-life exposures, but later exposures could impact fitness. We exposed adult frogs (Acris blanchardi) at reproduction to ecologically relevant atrazine concentrations (0, 1, or 10 µg/L) in outdoor arenas. We measured likelihood of breeding and number of resulting tadpoles. Atrazine impacted neither the probability of breeding nor the number of tadpoles produced, suggesting anuran reproductive success may not be impacted by short-term exposure to low concentrations. Environ Toxicol Chem 2017;36:3284–3288. © 2017 SETAC
Tissue‐engineered tendon constructs for rotator cuff repair in sheep
Authors: Novakova Stoyna S. , Mahalingam Vasudevan D. , Florida Shelby E. , Mendias Christopher L. , Allen Answorth , Arruda Ellen M. , Bedi Asheesh , Larkin Lisa M.
Published: June 2017

Current rotator cuff repair commonly involves the use of single or double row suture techniques, and despite successful outcomes, failure rates continue to range from 20 to 95%. Failure to regenerate native biomechanical properties at the enthesis is thought to contribute to failure rates. Thus, the need for technologies that improve structural healing of the enthesis after rotator cuff repair is imperative. To address this issue, our lab has previously demonstrated enthesis regeneration using a tissue‐engineered graft approach in a sheep anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) repair model. We hypothesized that our tissue‐engineered graft designed for ACL repair also will be effective in rotator cuff repair. The goal of this study was to test the efficacy of our Engineered Tissue Graft for Rotator Cuff (ETG‐RC) in a rotator cuff tear model in sheep and compare this novel graft technology to the commonly used double row suture repair technique. Following a 6‐month recovery, the grafted and contralateral shoulders were removed, imaged using X‐ray, and tested biomechanically. Additionally, the infraspinatus muscle, myotendinous junction, enthesis, and humeral head were preserved for histological analysis of muscle, tendon, and enthesis structure. Our results showed that our ETC‐RCs reached 31% of the native tendon tangent modulus, which was a modest, non‐significant, 11% increase over that of the suture‐only repairs. However, the histological analysis showed the regeneration of a native‐like enthesis in the ETG‐RC‐repaired animals. This advanced structural healing may improve over longer times and may diminish recurrence rates of rotator cuff tears and lead to better clinical outcomes. © 2017 Orthopaedic Research Society. Published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Orthop Res 36:289–299, 2018.
Self‐similar asymptotic profile of the solution to a nonlinear evolution equation with critical dissipation
Authors: D'Abbicco M. , Ebert M. R. , Lucente S.
Published: June 2017

In this paper, we obtain optimal decay estimates for the solutions to an evolution equation with critical, structural, dissipation, and absorbing power nonlinearity:

with μ>0, θ is a positive integer, and p>1+4θ/n, in space dimension n∈(2θ,4θ). We use these estimates to find the self‐similar asymptotic profile of the solutions, when μ≥1.