ABSTRACT As the representation of Western modernity’s dark undercurrent, the Gothic novel has since its inception in the 1760s developed and transformed alongside that modernity. This paper looks at two contemporary Gothic novels from the Low Countries, Herman Franke’s Wolfstonen (2003) and Saskia de Coster’s Wat alleen wij horen (2015), which are occupied with contemporary globalisation and immigration to the Netherlands and Belgium. Both novels cast the apartment buildings that are central to their plots as Gothic spaces fraught with images of modern, globalised society, as well as widespread anxiety over societal cohesion in ethnically and culturally diverse cities. An interdisciplinary reading constituted by gothic and postcolonial reading practices brings to the fore new elements of the Dutch and Flemish cultural imaginary. It reveals the continuous renewal of the gothic itself, but also into the changes brought to the Low Countries as a result of globalisation and immigration. These have their effect on the construction of community, a process that is articulated in both the form and the content of the novels’ narratives. Ultimately, I argue, the gothic is put to work in these novels as a way of dealing with the anxieties about and uncertainties of a postcolonial world.

中文翻译：

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急于改变世界：二十一世纪的低矮国家哥特小说

摘要作为西方现代性黑暗暗流的代表，哥特式小说自1760年代问世以来就随着现代性的发展和变化。本文考察了来自低地国家的两本当代哥特式小说，分别是赫尔曼·弗兰克（Herman Franke）的沃尔夫斯通（Wolfstonen）（2003）和萨斯基亚·德·科斯特（Saskia de Coster）的Wat alleen wij horen（2015），这些小说都与当代全球化以及向荷兰和比利时的移民有关。这两本小说都把公寓建筑摆在了他们的地盘的中心，因为哥特式空间充满了现代全球化社会的图像，并且在种族和文化差异的城市中普遍对社会凝聚力感到焦虑。由哥特式和后殖民时期的阅读实践构成的跨学科阅读将荷兰和佛兰德文化想象中的新元素带到了前沿。它揭示了哥特式本身的不断更新，也揭示了全球化和移民给低地国家带来的变化。这些都对社区的建设产生影响，这一过程既体现在小说叙事的形式上，又体现在小说叙事的内容上。我认为，归根结底，哥特式小说在这些小说中被用来作为应对后殖民世界焦虑和不确定性的一种方式。