Katharina Hendrickx
School Tutor

Research

Domestic Noir: Reading Contemporary Women's Genre Fiction 

My thesis is a study of the subgenre of domestic noir focusing on genre conventions, literary heritage and audience responses. It examines why domestic noir has been read widely in the last decade and how it fits alongside current women’s movements, outpourings of anger, and protests against gendered violence in recent years. Specifically, I look at how domestic noir can be understood and defined as a subgenre in relation to the current political and cultural postfeminist and neoliberal climate. Here, I move away from critics’ and publishers’ definitions and place readers of the subgenre at the centre of my examination and their discussions around the revenge plot, unreliable and unlikable characters and the literary value of domestic noir. While this thesis explores, similarly to other genre research, the characteristics, tropes, and structure of the subgenre through textual analysis, I apply a dual approach, examining not only the textual clues but also readers’ engagement, response, and understanding of the subgenre. This is primarily done through six all women book groups that were held in libraries around Brighton and Hove over three months, which lead this study of domestic noir, its portrayal of women’s perspectives, fears, and rage. Throughout this thesis I especially focus on domestic noir’s relationship with the female Gothic, which has largely been left unexplored. I argue that domestic noir is part of the longstanding tradition of female Gothic writing and that it not only takes on a didactic purpose for readers through realistic elements in plot and narration, but also brings pleasure through the revenge plot and Gothic excess. This combination of realism and escapism within the books enabled the groups to process, share and discuss private and public experiences of sexism, misogyny, and instances of abuse as well as to build community with each other, connecting individual experiences in the books to personal and wider societal concerns.

Conference Presentations 

Jun 2023 - Contemporary Global Feminisms – Solidarity Across Differences, CHASE Feminist Network Conference, Birkbeck University, UK – “Resist Project: Mutual aid in the fight against patriarchal oppression”. 

Jun 2023 - DIY-ing Gender: A Zine Fest, Durham University, UK – “From the female Gothic to Domestic Noir” . 

Mar 2023 - Captivating Criminality 9: Intersections of Crime and the Gothic, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok – “My handsome, psychopathic husband’: The Gothic Heroine’s Struggle against the Toxic Man in 21st Century Domestic Noir” .   

Jun 2022 - Captivating Criminality 8: Crime Fiction, Femininities and Masculinities, University of Bamberg, Germany - "Reading, discussing, and living domestic noir: The women’s crime fiction book club during the Covid-19 pandemic”. 

Sep 2021 - Feminism(s) in the Age of Covid-19 and Beyond, Online - “It's my only hour of quiet”: The women’s online book club on ‘domestic noir’ during the Covid-19 pandemic .   

Apr 2021 - 50+ Shades of Gothic: The Gothic Across Genre and Media in US Popular Culture, PopMec, Online - "Our McMansion on the River: The Suburban Gothic House in Gone Girl and The Wife Between Us” . 

Dec 2019 - Student Voice and the Co-creation of Interventions for Improving Post-Graduate Researcher Mental Health and Wellbeing, University of Sussex - Mental Health, Wellbeing and Peer Support for the Doctoral Media, Film and Music Community 

Aug 2019 - Girls, Girls, Girls! Defining and Deconstructing Domestic Noir, Trinity College Dublin - ‘He had it coming’: Reading the gothic revenge plot in 21st century domestic noir 

Jul 2019 - Gothic Terror, Gothic Horror - 15th conference of the International Gothic Association, Lewis University -  Twenty-first century domestic noir and the literary legacy of the female and male gothic.

May 2019 - Reimiagining the Gothic with a Vengenance: Returns, Revenge, Reckonings, University of Sheffield          - The return of Bluebeard: The Gothic heroine’s revenge in 21st century domestic noir 

Jun 2016  - The Ageless Agatha Christies Conference, University of Exeter - Detecting the Movement of Meaning: An Examiniation of Christie in both national and transnational context.

Mar 2016  - 8th Annual Postgraduate Conference, Bournemouth University - Gone Girl and the Gothic