A Gothic imagination is foundational to the American national mindset

Evidence

Mark Edmunson argues the Gothic is a foundational part of the American episteme, that the United States is a “nation of ideals… . [and] a nation of hard disillusionment, with a fiercely reactive Gothic imagination.” — Sophia Rose Arjana, Muslims in the Western Imagination, 573

Categorization

• XREF: Edmunson’s ‘Gothic imagination’ thesis is a structural parallel to Arjana’s whole argument — a recurring cultural form that names and domesticates what threatens.