Update: The Secrets that Animals Keep: Terror, Cruelty, and Trauma in the Gothic Imagination

full name / name of organization: 
Amy Branam Armiento
contact email: 

NASSR Conference
August 11-14, 2016
University of California, Berkeley

The Secrets that Animals Keep: Terror, Cruelty, and Trauma in the Gothic Imagination
Proposed by: Dr. Amy Armiento, Frostburg State University, abranam@frostburg.edu and Dr. Kevin Knott, Frostburg State University, kwknott@frostburg.edu

Poe's "stately Raven of the saintly days of yore," Wordsworth's sheep in his pastoral "Michael," Keats' "heifer lowing at the skies," and Brockden Brown's panther in Edgar Huntly all represent the ubiquitous and, often, key inclusion of non-human animals in Romantic works. Whereas these animals are often read as projections of the protagonists' own psyches, these animals are also entities in their own right. Although, arguably, the characters of Romantic works chose their own fates, or at least have some control, the animals associated with them, for better or worse, possess much less power.

"Psychological trauma," Judith Herman writes in Trauma and Recovery (1992), "is an affliction of the powerless." Though Herman was speaking exclusively of human subjects, gothic literature reminds us that psychological trauma can be suffered by nonhuman subjects as well. The gothic tradition is replete with stories of animals exposed to terror, cruelty, and captivity that depict the kind of traumatic moments (physical and psychological) scholars have associated with the human experience. However, animal cognitions are not rendered as overtly as their human counterparts, invoking significant questions about the psychological histories that nonhumans might tell. These secret histories are pertinent to the ongoing research into the field of gothic literature, and we invite papers on the broader subject of animals and gothic literature as well as research into the intersectionality of nonhuman trauma and the gothic.

Paper topics may include interrogations of how the animal presence opens the possibility for a gothic reading of works not usually considered as gothic, revisionist interpretations that focus on the point-of-view/experience of the non-human animal, New Historical readings of the position of animals during the period and place a work is written and published, and any other reading that centers on the imbalance of power between the human and non-human characters.

All pedagogical or theoretical approaches are welcome. Please send a one-page abstract in Word to Amy Armiento abranam@frostburg.edu or Kevin Knott kwknott@frostburg.edu by January 1, 2016.