Lucia Rhiannon Harrison L&S Arts & Humanities
Girlhood the gothic resurgence and dissociative feminism in literature
My research looks at the online popularity of contemporary gothic literature that is simultaneously feminist and neoliberal, centering work popular among teenage girls and women, and the online discourse around such writing, and how it is relegated to a particular audience by way of its branding as “girl” or “sad girl” lit. These discourses have much to reveal about their own cultural values, as well as the diverse permutations of “feminism” among such literature’s readers and fans. In social media discourse some fans identify with the satirical gothic heroine, embodying the very irony of the novel. These fans follow a brand of dissociative, “sad girl” feminism, evoking principles of 2nd wave feminism, in a distinctly contemporary manner, through its processes of individuation. My research looks within the novel and to discourse on social media mechanisms outside to understand how fans of the novel understand their lives through pathology and therapy-speak, as well as how the social conditions of living under late-stage capitalism influence their particular feminist tendencies.
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