Gothic Mtis: Cunning Monstrosity, Shapeshifting and Subversion linking the Nineteenth Century to the Present

Exhuming and reanimating an obscure ancient cunning associated with the monstrous, the hybrid, the feminine and the nonhuman, this study proposes a novel transdisciplinary framework for analysing Gothic media and discourse through the lens of mtis. Mtis denotes a wily, adaptive intelligence shared by tricksters, humans, nonhumans and objects, characterised by shapeshifting, twists and duplicity it is also an artful praxis for blurring categories, embracing multiplicity, navigating difference and subverting authority. Using mtis as both theme and method, Gothic Mtis weaves together myth, literature, rhetorical theory and critical posthumanism, to analyse Gothic character and narration from the nineteenth century to the present while developing a post-anthropocentric praxis for representing, navigating and ultimately subverting the Anthropocene. Reading Gothic alongside and through mtisand mtis alongside and through Gothicthis book highlights the Gothic mode as a timely, artful response to the rise of the Anthropocene, rendering a post-anthropocentric world beyond Man. See more