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Vampires, Shape-Shifters, and Sinister Light: Mistranslating Australian Aboriginal Horror in Theory and Literary Practice

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Abstract

Borwein does a much-needed survey of Australian Aboriginal horror literature, or indighorror, a genre that has been underrepresented, or even suppressed, in scholarship. In doing so, Borwein offers insight into the complex relationship between the Australian horror tradition and the indighorror tradition, as well as the forces affecting distribution and availability of the genre. Because postcolonialism itself is increasingly represented as a Western, poststructural concept that subverts, and even threatens to mistranslate subaltern horror, the textual analysis in this chapter relies on more culturally specific methodological frameworks, or subaltern theories, for reading indighorror. Applied to works by indighorror authors like Philip McLaren, D. Bruno Starrs, Raymond Gates, and others, the chapter concludes by emphasizing the conceptual differences between Western horror and Australian Aboriginal horror.

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Borwein, N.S. (2018). Vampires, Shape-Shifters, and Sinister Light: Mistranslating Australian Aboriginal Horror in Theory and Literary Practice. In: Corstorphine, K., Kremmel, L. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook to Horror Literature. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-97406-4_5

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