Queer Others in Victorian Gothic

Ardel Haefele-Thomas is a Victorian and Queer Studies scholar and Chair of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Studies at City College of San Francisco.

Ardel Haefele-Thomas's 'Queer Others in Victorian Gothic' in Wales's series Gothic Literary Studies applies Queer and Postcolonial theory to the Gothic fiction of Collins, Gaskell, Haggard, Le Fanu, Marryat, and Vernon Lee - with surprising results. In richly historicized contexts, Haefele-Thomas reveals refined explorations of Otherness in Victorian literature, as well as complicated empathies and tolerances that unsettle our critical assumptions. Teaching on a daily basis in San Francisco's LGBT community, Haefele-Thomas has provided an accessible genealogy of our contemporary boundary crossings. It is a superb application of theory to literary history and to the present. Regenia Gagnier Professor of English, University of Exeter and President, British Association for Victorian Studies

• Chapter One: Introduction Chapter Two: The Spinster and the Hijra: How Queers Save Heterosexual Marriage in Wilkie Collins's The Woman in White and The Moonstone Chapter Three: Escaping Heteronormativity: Queer Family Structures in Elizabeth Gaskell's Lois the Witch and 'The Grey Woman' Chapter Four: Disintegrating Binaries, Disintegrating Bodies: Queer Imperial Transmogrifications in H. Rider Haggard's She Chapter Five: '"One Does Things Abroad That One Would Not Dream Of Doing In England"': Miscegenation and Queer Female Vampirism in J. Sheridan Le Fanu's Carmilla and Florence Marryat's The Blood of the Vampire Chapter Six: In Defense of Her Queer Community: Vernon Lee's Coded Decadent Gothic