| This dissertation theorizes horror in contemporary Indigenous North American literature
as it relates to the history of the white supremacy in North American subjectivity coded within
gothic and horror literature. I examine contemporary Indigenous North American fiction
alongside early American literature written by White men as well as gothic and horror literature
written in the time between then and now by various, influential authors. I argue that the North
American gothic and horror traditions help shape a white supremacist subjectivity native to
White North America. I then theorize Indigenous intervention in the North American gothic and
horror traditions present within contemporary Indigenous North Americans literature by
exploring the racism inherent in various subfields of horror including studies that pertain to
ghosts, monsters, and the body in North America. Finally, I theorize various ways to approach
teaching horror in Indigenous North American literature. I hold that horror in Indigenous North
American literature reveals various antiracist Indigenous North American subjectivities which
rework the gothic and horror tropes underlying the white supremacy of White North American
subjectivity by highlighting the various histories that gothic and horror have traditionally erased.
I ground this argument in Gerald Vizenor’s theory of transmotion as well as a wide variety of
scholarship on the narrative structures of gothic and horror literature. I utilize theories of
subjectivities, regenerative violence, racial representationalism, and more as I argue that
Indigenous North American authors engaging with horror in their fiction address and respond to
the white supremacy coded with the North American gothic and horror tradition in a way that is
at once resistant and non-essentializing. I argue that, because the white supremacist North
American subjectivity that represses considerations of racism in North America has been largely constructed in gothic fiction and reworked in horror, it should come as no surprise that horror is
where contemporary Indigenous North American authors are currently writing. This work joins
an ongoing and robust conversation around Indigenous North American engagement with genre
fiction, introducing considerations of the gothic and horror to the terrain that has already begun
to be mapped in science fiction and fantasy studies.
Key Words: Indigenous North American, horror, gothic, ghosts, monsters, survivance,
transmotion, Stephen Graham Jones, Gerald Vizenor, Cherie Dimaline, Darcie Little Badger,
Louise Erdrich, A.A. Carr, LeAnne Howe, Owl Goingback, Charles Brockden Brown, Stephen
King, TribCrit, body gothic, gore |