Kevorkian, Martin, 1968-2014-10-062018-01-222018-01-222014-05May 2014http://hdl.handle.net/2152/26299textThis report combines queer theory with the cosmicist philosophy of early twentieth-century horror writer Howard Phillips Lovecraft to ask new questions about Herman Melville's treatments of gender and genre in "The Bell-Tower," one of his more obscure short stories. Though the tale has been commonly represented as an exemplar of both the Oedipal complex and Gothic horror, my reading reveals a negative, anti- humanist epistemology and very complex presentations of gender and sexuality at work in the text. This peculiar combination indicates a heretofore-unnoticed line of descent from Melville's story to a still-thriving movement in the horror genre.application/pdfenHorrorMelvilleThesis2014-10-06