![southern gothic literature definition southern gothic literature definition](http://gothicamericana.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Wise-Blood-cover-1008x530.jpg)
Black Artemis draws on the power of Gothic literature to subvert social systems in her novel Explicit Content (2004) in order to illuminate the sinister forces surrounding her ostensibly vulnerable female characters, whom she then recasts as their own rescuers.
![southern gothic literature definition southern gothic literature definition](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/southerngothicliterature-130311205645-phpapp01/85/southern-gothic-literature-10-320.jpg)
However, many American versions of Gothic, written much closer in time to the events which they depict, directly engage with race as well as gender and class as a way to grapple with slavery and its legacy in the United States. At the Gothic’s European inception in the second half of the eighteenth century, the genre’s texts often masked their engagement in contemporary issues through settings long ago and far away from the presumed context of their readers, in such places as medieval Italy, Spain during the Inquisition, or England’s windswept moors. as a vehicle of social critique, noted for its blurring of generic distinctions. Yet, like hip-hop, the Gothic has long been used. For popular audiences, hip-hop is a widely accessible, multi-faceted contemporary cultural movement, whereas Gothic literature is often seen as a specialty, an outmoded genre that returns to popularity only during Halloween. The term “hip-hop Gothic” seems like a contradiction in genres, a blend that is potentially more intriguing than successful.