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Speculative gothic fiction and the scar as trauma trope : imagining hope through horror
Thesis (DPhil)--Stellenbosch University, 2025.
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| Format: | Thesis |
| Language: | English |
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Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University
2025
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| _version_ | 1867614021486641152 |
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| access_status_str | Open Access |
| author | Minter, Lobke |
| author2 | Ellis, Jeanne |
| author_browse | Ellis, Jeanne Minter, Lobke |
| author_facet | Ellis, Jeanne Minter, Lobke |
| author_sort | Minter, Lobke |
| collection | Thesis |
| dc_rights_str_mv | Stellenbosch University |
| description | Thesis (DPhil)--Stellenbosch University, 2025. |
| format | Thesis |
| id | oai:scholar.sun.ac.za:10019.1/132596 |
| institution | Stellenbosch University (South Africa) |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2026-06-10T12:45:24.995Z |
| license_str | Other — see source repository |
| provenance_str_mv | Harvested via OAI-PMH from SUNScholar — Stellenbosch University Repository |
| publishDate | 2025 |
| publishDateRange | 2025 |
| publishDateSort | 2025 |
| publisher | Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University |
| publisherStr | Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University |
| record_format | dspace |
| source_str | SUNScholar — Stellenbosch University Repository |
| spelling | oai:scholar.sun.ac.za:10019.1/132596 Speculative gothic fiction and the scar as trauma trope : imagining hope through horror Minter, Lobke Ellis, Jeanne Ellis, Jeanne, 1962- Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of English. Gothic fiction (Literary genre) -- History and criticism Speculative fiction -- History and criticism Psychic trauma in literature Hope in literature Horror tales -- History and criticism UCTD Thesis (DPhil)--Stellenbosch University, 2025. Minter, L. 2025. Speculative Gothic Fiction and the Scar as Trauma Trope: Imagining Hope Through Horror. Unpublished doctoral dissertation. Stellenbosch: Stellenbosch University [online]. Available: https://scholar.sun.ac.za/items/b709f713-1b33-4df4-b7f7-b600912db2b3 ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This dissertation engages with but also departs from the trope of the wound in trauma theory by focusing on three speculative gothic novels in which current anxieties about ecological crisis and fears of a global collapse are configured as forms of traumatic wounding but which also, importantly, deploy the scar as an alternative, more hopeful literary and theoretical configuration to signify a process of post-traumatic healing that is nevertheless unsentimental in its potentiality. My study centralises three speculative gothic novels which have been published since the turn of the century, namely China Miéville’s The Scar (2002), Nnedi Okorafor Who Fears Death (2010), and Margaret Atwood’s MaddAddam (2013). I will argue that these novels help us to imagine a move beyond trauma that counters the conventional depiction of wounding or trauma as a ruination of the body and the self. By centralising the scar, my project engages with wounds and practices of healing and resistance, asking what a reparative engagement with injury looks like physically, emotionally, and ecologically. The authors each challenge and transform assumptions about trauma as well as the human, in a way that can be extended to interrogate the systems within which the wounding of both the characters and the world occur. The key focus of the dissertation on speculative gothic texts draws significantly on scholarship of each genre, as well as how their combination is metonymically invoked by scarification. As scarring has received very little critical attention within literary studies, the original contribution of this dissertation resides in the suggestion of the speculative gothic as a theoretical frame from which to read scarification productively. AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Hierdie studie handel oor en wyk ook af van die wond soos dit in traumateorie gebruik word. Dit word gedoen deur ‘n fokus op drie spekulatiewe gotiese romans waarin huidige angs oor ekologiese krisis en vrese vir 'n globale ineenstorting gekonfigureer word as vorme van traumatiese verwonding, maar wat ook die litteken as 'n alternatiewe, meer hoopvolle literêre en teoretiese konfigurasie ontplooi. Dit dui 'n proses van post-traumatiese genesing aan wat nietemin onsentimenteel in sy potensiaal is. My studie sentraliseer drie spekulatiewe gotiese romans wat sedert die draai van die eeu gepubliseer is, naamlik China Miéville se The Scar (2002), Nnedi Okorafor Who Fears Death (2010), en Margaret Atwood se MaddAddam (2013). Ek sal wys dat hierdie romans ons help om 'n teoretiese skuif te maak wat die konvensionele uitbeelding van verwonding en trauma as 'n vernietiging van die liggaam en die self teëwerk. Deur die litteken te sentraliseer, betrek my projek wonde en praktyke van genesing en weerstand, en vra hoe herstelwerk met besering fisies, emosioneel en ekologies lyk. Die skrywers daag uit en transformeer aannames oor trauma sowel as wat dit beteken om mens te wees, op 'n manier wat uitgebrei kan word om die sisteme waarbinne die verwonding van die karakters en die wêreld plaasvind, te ondervra. Die sleutelfokus van die proefskrif oor spekulatiewe gotiese tekste trek beduidend uit die vakkundigheid van elke genre, asook hoe die kombinasie daarvan metonimies opgeroep word deur ‘scarification’. Aangesien littekenvorming baie min kritiese aandag binne die literatuurwetenskap ontvang het, is die oorspronklike bydrae van hierdie studie die voorstel dat die spekulatiewe gotiek geskik is as 'n teoretiese raam waaruit ‘scarification’ produktief gelees kan word. Doctoral 2025-06-11T12:06:11Z 2025-06-11T12:06:11Z 2025-03 Thesis https://scholar.sun.ac.za/handle/10019.1/132596 en Stellenbosch University vi, 192 pages application/pdf Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University |
| spellingShingle | Gothic fiction (Literary genre) -- History and criticism Speculative fiction -- History and criticism Psychic trauma in literature Hope in literature Horror tales -- History and criticism UCTD Minter, Lobke Speculative gothic fiction and the scar as trauma trope : imagining hope through horror |
| title | Speculative gothic fiction and the scar as trauma trope : imagining hope through horror |
| title_full | Speculative gothic fiction and the scar as trauma trope : imagining hope through horror |
| title_fullStr | Speculative gothic fiction and the scar as trauma trope : imagining hope through horror |
| title_full_unstemmed | Speculative gothic fiction and the scar as trauma trope : imagining hope through horror |
| title_short | Speculative gothic fiction and the scar as trauma trope : imagining hope through horror |
| title_sort | speculative gothic fiction and the scar as trauma trope imagining hope through horror |
| topic | Gothic fiction (Literary genre) -- History and criticism Speculative fiction -- History and criticism Psychic trauma in literature Hope in literature Horror tales -- History and criticism UCTD |
| url | https://scholar.sun.ac.za/handle/10019.1/132596 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT minterlobke speculativegothicfictionandthescarastraumatropeimagininghopethroughhorror |