Weird Fictions Research Group invites you to a talk by
Carolin Jesussek
(Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz)
Queer Ecosystems: Gothic Materialism in Carmen Maria Machado’s In the Dream House
Wednesday, March 30, 2022
at 5:30 p.m.
You can get 2 OZN points for participating in this event.
Check how to collect OZN points online here.
Where?
This lecture will be streamed online. To attend, click the button below or enter https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86473074228 into your browser, and join the meeting.
What?
Looking at the world through Carmen Maria Machado’s eyes in her autobiographical In the Dream House (2019) allows us to understand why a queer person perceives everyday places as gothic. This talk addresses not only the anxieties related to moving through a heteropatriarchal world as a marginalized person but further looks into the trauma of queer intimate partner abuse through the trope of the haunted house. I consider how spaces in Dream House are gothicized, by examining the queer ecosystems in which Machado, non-human agents, and other human actors like Machado’s former partner, interact. This talk further seeks to show how the gothic is updated to contemporary times, addressing long-distance relationships, the phone, the silence around queer intimate partner abuse, and gendered understandings of violence.
Who?
Carolin Jesussek holds a Master of Education in English, German, and Geography from Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz. She is a Ph.D. candidate at the Obama Institute for Transnational American Studies at Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz. Her dissertation focuses on the material and spatial dimensions of marginalization in contemporary North American gothic literature. During her current research stay at the University of Warsaw, Carolin is working on her chapter on Carmen Maria Machado’s In the Dream House (2019), and is mentored by Dr. Agnieszka Kotwasińska.
