Alice in Pornoland

Hardcore Encounters with the Victorian Gothic

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by Laura Helen Marks

Type

Studies

Subject

Sociology

Keywords

censorship, sexuality, gothic

Publishing date

2018

Publisher

University of Illinois Press

Language

English

Relative size

Physical desc.

Paperback • 232 pages
6 x 8 ¾ inches (15 x 22.5 cm)

ISBN

978-0-252-08385-3

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Book Presentation:
Victorian repression, sexual expression, porn obsession

The unquenchable thirst of Dracula. The animal lust of Mr. Hyde. The acquiescence of Lewis Carroll's Alice. Victorian literature--with its overtones of prudishness, respectability, and Old World hypocrisy--belies a subverted eroticism. The Victorian Gothic is monstrous but restrained, repressed but perverse, static but transformative, and preoccupied by gender and sexuality in both regressive and progressive ways.
Laura Helen Marks investigates the contradictions and seesawing gender dynamics in Victorian-inspired adult films and looks at why pornographers persist in drawing substance and meaning from the era's Gothic tales. She focuses on the particular Victorianness that pornography prefers, and the mythologies of the Victorian era that fuel today's pornographic fantasies. In turn, she exposes what porning the Victorians shows us about pornography as a genre.
A bold foray into theory and other forbidden places, Alice in Pornoland reveals how modern-day Victorian Gothic pornography constantly emphasizes, navigates, transgresses, and renegotiates issues of gender, sexuality, and race.

About the Author:
Laura Helen Marks is a professor of practice in the Department of English at Tulane University.

Press Reviews:
"Through its in-depth investigation of the dialogue between the porn industry and the world of our supposedly 'prudish' forefathers, Alice in Pornoland: Hardcore Encounters with the Victorian Gothic represents an important contribution to the analysis of a cinematic genre (neo-Victorian porn) that has been partially neglected in scholarly works." --Neo-Victorian Studies

"The sign of a great nonfiction work is ending up in deep rabbit holes and exploring the references and footnotes in it. Alice in Pornoland: Hardcore Encounters with the Victorian Gothic by Laura Helen Marks is an amazing buffet of rabbit holes: erotica theory, media studies, histories (both well-known and generally invisibilized), queer theory, sociology, pleasure activism, and literary scholarship are all here." --Positive Sexuality

See the publisher website: University of Illinois Press