The 'Confrontational Escapism' of the New Weird: Reading Challenging Fiction in Online Spaces

在一个巨大的国际动荡时期，怪诞小说总是会以某种形式卷土重来。蒂姆·兰森德在《新世界怪人》的马克思主义分析中详细阐述了，正是在经济危机的关键时刻，新怪人在本世纪头十年再次竖起了它可怕的头。当然，《新怪人》只是在回顾其种族主义祖先怪人的过程中才是新的，通过托马斯·利戈蒂所称的对抗性逃避主义的过程，我认为《新怪人》非常依赖这些种族主义、性别歧视和分类小说，就像真菌可能依赖于腐烂和腐烂的东西一样。《新怪人》不断颠覆和挑战20世纪20年代困扰《怪人》作家的旧恐怖，并辩称，恐怖不是来自未知的和另一个、被边缘化和脆弱的人，而是来自权力结构、白人霸权和正常化的、异性恋的性和性别概念的更多恐惧和恐怖。但是，对于那些被种族、阶级或性别歧视困住并变得可怕的人来说，这个想象中的地狱有什么用呢？《新怪人》在援引可怕的现实时提供了什么？运用马克思主义、女权主义和批判性种族理论，我将建立一个框架，通过这个框架来理解‘对抗性逃避主义’，以及New Weird对它的使用如何挑战残酷的现实；我还将研究读者如何对新Weird文学想象中的地狱做出反应，以及为什么正如将观察到的那样，与New Weird的接触增加发生在网络空间，如不和谐和Goodreads。因此，本论文将专注于对这些文本的批判性阅读和读者对这些具有挑战性的小说的反应。通过调查读者为什么会接触到描绘非常真实的、生活在现实中的令人不安的恐怖，我将与新怪诞小说的批评性参与结合起来，提出一个“对抗性逃避现实”理论，通过这种方式，我们可能会更好地理解，通过在线读书俱乐部的公共空间接触创伤现实有什么心理健康好处。

Weird fiction has always entered into some kind of resurgence in a time of great, international tumult. Tim Lanzendör's Marxist analysis of the Neww Weird elaborates that it was at the 'concerete moment of economic crisis' that the New Weird reared its monstrous head again during the 2000s. Of course, the New Weird is only New in retrospect to its racist ancestor, The Weird, and through the process of what Thomas Ligotti calls Confrontational Escapism, I am arguing that the New Weird very much relies upon these racist, sexist, classist fictions in the same way that fungi might rely on that which decomposes and rots. The New Weird consistently subverts and challenges the old horrors that beset writers of the Weird in the 1920s, and argues that instead of horror being drawn from the unknown and the Other, the marginalised and the vulnerable, there is more dread and terror that comes from power structures, from white hegemonies and normalised, heteronormative conceptions of sex and gender. But what use is this imaginary hell to people trapped and made monstrous by racial, class, or gender discrimination, what does New Weird provide in its invocations of horrific realities? Employing Marxist, feminist, and critical race theories, I will develop a framework through which to understand 'confrontational escapism' and how New Weird's use of it challenges oppressive realities; I will also examine how readers are responding to the imaginary hells of New Weird literature, and why, as will be observed, this increase in engagement with the New Weird has taken place in online spaces such as Discord and Goodreads.The thesis will therefore focus both on critical readings of these texts and on reader's responses to these challenging fictions. By investigating why readers engage with troubling horrors that depict very real, lived-in realities, I will pair with the critical engagement of New Weird fiction to propose a theory of 'Confrontational Escapism', a way in which we might better understood what, if any, mental health benefits there are to engaging with traumatic realities through the communal space of the online book club.