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Contemporary Australian Trauma

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The Palgrave Handbook of Contemporary Gothic
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Abstract

As a nation haunted by the spectres of its colonialism, Australia has looked to the Gothic as a genre capable of grappling with its complexities. Precisely because of this fraught historical context, the Australian Gothic is dominated by a discourse of trauma. This can be seen in the key themes which remain consistent in the genre over this time, as well as in a range of key contexts for the Australian representation of the Gothic. This chapter aims to demonstrate the ways in which the Gothic is particularly suited as a structural representation of trauma and oppression in Australia’s fraught historical and social context.

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Correspondence to Jessica Gildersleeve .

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Gildersleeve, J. (2020). Contemporary Australian Trauma. In: Bloom, C. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Contemporary Gothic. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-33136-8_6

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