Thomas Brassington

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tomwbrass/
Email: tombrassington94@gmail.com

Thesis Title

Dragging the Gothic

Institution

Lancaster University

Supervisors

Prof Catherine Spooner
Dr Debra Ferreday

Research Summary

My thesis makes a case for alternative modes of queer Gothic analysis. It challenged the limitations set by current queer Gothic studies’ investment in three overlapping area, these being: the Gothic’s capacity as a site in which queer sexualities and desires can be played out (Haggerty 2006); how the Gothic renders queerness as monstrous (Halberstam 1995); and how its transgressive tendencies provide an ambivalent revolutionary site in which gender and sexual minorities can overpower heteronormative oppressors (Haefele-Thomas 2012).

With what constitutes queerness in popular culture changing, my thesis increases the variety of approaches and foci available to analysis of a mode so predisposed to queer representation. I use drag to provide fresh queer approaches for queer Gothic studies and expose the variant ways in which queer create art and culture.

In all, my research finds new queer theoretical positions for Gothic studies via the act of dragging, and does so to encourage new modes of queer critical analysis in this Gothic.

Research Interests

Contemporary Gothic,
Popular Culture,
Queer Identities,
Femininities.

Publications

‘Rethinking marginality in new queer television’, Queer Studies in Media & Popular Culture, 7.1-2 (2022) 3-7 [Editorial, co-written with Debra Ferreday and Danielle Girard]

‘“Show gay people for the often-awful people they are”’: Reframing queer monstrosity’, Queer Studies in Media & Popular Culture, 7.1-2 (2022) 27-40

‘“Hello, Uglies”: Nosferatu’s Queer Legacy in the Twenty-First Century’, Nosferatu in the 21st Century: A Critical Study, ed. Simon Bacon (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2022)

‘“Tarting up ideas in costume jewellery”: Contemporary Gothic Camp’, Queer Gothic: An Edinburgh Companion, ed. Ardel Haefele-Thomas (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2023)

‘“Girls Just Wanna Have Fun”: Feminist Gothic Camp’, Comic Gothic: An Edinburgh Companion, eds. Avril Horner & Sue Zlosnik (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, forthcoming)

‘Introduction’, New Queer Television: From Marginalisation to Mainstreamification, eds. Thomas Brassington, Debra Ferreday and Danielle Girard (Bristol: Intellect, forthcoming) [co-written with Debra Ferreday and Danielle Girard]

‘Coda’, New Queer Television: From Marginalisation to Mainstreamification, eds. Thomas Brassington, Debra Ferreday and Danielle Girard (Bristol: Intellect, forthcoming) [co-written with Debra Ferreday and Danielle Girard]