The Gothic genre, like its sibling horror, often lends itself to both progressive and conservative modes of discourse: on the one hand, you might have focalizing female characters through whose experience the narrative is told while at the same time the terror experienced can be related to the violations of often conservative social norms. Active settings and descriptions of place help to populate the Gothic genre, impacting the aesthetics and sensibilities of a text. Nature, especially, can sometimes play as active a role as the literal characters in Gothic works. This panel proposal seeks works investigating the tug between these two cultural axes as it comes through the language used to talk about land in Gothic media. Papers investigating the representations of nature in Gothic media for this panel may look at topics such as the way the narratives use nature to challenge or validate our understanding of how we fit into the world.

Some topics and questions for consideration might include, but are not limited to:

Variations on representations of place in locational Gothics (for example, from an American perspective, how does Nature function in a work of Southern Gothic versus New England Gothic? Are there significant differences to how different national literatures represent nature in their gothic media, or to what degree are there similarities between how we talk about land regardless of country of origin?)

To what degree does the representation of Nature in Gothic literature and media reflect conservative or progressive attitudes towards the groups who live in a place?

What does the representation of ecology and land in contemporary Gothic media tell us about our current attitudes (and fears) regarding nature?

This panel seeks works investigating the tug between progressive and conservative ideals and influences on the Gothic genre, especially as they are expressed through the ways Nature and the environment are used and described.