Andrew Hock soon Ng Knihy

This study attempts to multiculturalise the Gothic by reading a wide selection of Postcolonial Asian and Asian American narratives in light of familiar Gothic tropes such as the uncanny, the double, spectres, and the sublime. Discussing some of the more important concepts in postcolonialism such as subjectivity, belonging, hybridity and nationalism, the author argues that the trajectory of the postcolonial and diasporic experience is fraught with profound moments of trauma, loss and transgression which the aesthetics of the Gothic can illuminate. Throughout the study, a careful balance is maintained between deploying Gothic criticism and emphasising the narrative’s cultural, historical and ideological specificity to ensure that a textual form of colonial imposition does not occur. Writings by well-known authors such as Rushdie, Roy, Ondaatje and Mukherjee, and lesser known ones such as Lan Samantha Chang, K. S, Maniam and Beth Yahp are analysed.

The essays in this collection attest to the richness of the double motif in literature and philosophy. Veering away from predominantly psychoanalytical readings of narratives which foreground the double (or doppelganger), which have formed the basis of much scholarly discussions of this motif, the contributions in this volume privilege divergent philosophical leanings - ranging from Rousseau to Kierkegaard, from Christian philosophy to Eastern mysticism - to elicit the layered nuances and signifiers of this elusive motif. Narratives interrogated in this collection include the works of Dickens, Blanchot, Edmund Jabés, Orhan Pamuk, Chuck Palahniuk and Don Delillo, among others.