Publications
Books
Gothic Realities: The Impact of Horror Fiction on Modern Culture
Horror fiction has been immensely popular since the first “Gothic” novel appeared in the eighteenth century, but critics have almost universally dismissed it as contemptible and even dangerous. Why? Many critics claim that horror stories create real-world horrors, and their condemnations aim to control this threat. Gothic Realities examines the horrific agency that critics have granted the horror genre for more than two centuries, identifying the extent to which Gothic fictions have the power to spawn Gothic realities.
After examining ways that the philosophies of John Locke and David Hume contributed to a paradigm for fearing the fiction of fear, the first section of Gothic Realities analyzes the rhetoric of eighteenth-century critical responses to the Gothic in general and to Ann Radcliffe's The Mysteries of Udolpho and Matthew Lewis's The Monk in particular. The second section looks at the historical relationship between the Gothic and homosexuality, examining Frankenstein, Melmoth the Wanderer, Carmilla, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and The Picture of Dorian Gray before turning to contemporaries like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the films of David DeCoteau. The next section looks at connections between fictional ghost stories and "real" ghost stories, analyzing dozens of texts. The final section explores the dangerous influence attributed to the Gothic during the controversies surrounding the tragedies at Columbine and Virginia Tech; it concludes with a discussion of the potential for political agency in films such as Saw and Hostel.
Gothic Realities Table of Contents
Dario Argento. Under contract.
Hollywood stars' appearances in his recent films and the possibility that his classic Suspiria will soon receive the remake treatment suggest that Dario Argento might finally be gaining mainstream respectability, but a cult following as well as fans of the horror genre have revered Argento’s artistic and intellectual sophistication since his directorial debut, The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (1970). Argento’s films have earned increasing notice from critics and scholars in recent years, but no academic book has yet offered an in-depth study of his films’ complex relationships with cinematic conventions and with high-cultural assumptions about cinematic art. Dario Argento fills this gap.
Refereed Articles
Burnett, Rebecca E., L. Andrew Cooper, and Candice A. Welhausen. “How can technical communicators develop strategies for effective collaboration?” In Solving Problems in Technical Communication, ed. Johndan Johnson-Eilola and Stuart A. Selber. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. FORTHCOMING.
Cooper, L. Andrew, “Gothic Threats: The Role of Danger in the Critical Evaluation of The Monk and The Mysteries of Udolpho,” Gothic Studies 8.2, November 2006.
Cooper, L. Andrew, “The Indulgence of Critique: Relocating the Sadistic Voyeur in Dario Argento’s Opera,” The Quarterly Review of Film and Video 22.1, January-March 2005.