My thesis examines Gothic depictions of education within bildungsroman-style novels and films produced in the US, Australia, and Canada in the form of a comparative study. I coin the label “Educational Gothic” to define these works. The shared context of settler colonialism is the critical foundation for my analysis. If the bildungsroman has been central to burgeoning settler nations in solidifying a national character and establishing a sense of tradition, I examine its reverse. I theorise that the Gothic institution reoccurs as a means of depicting and interrogating darker educational histories, particularly when they are not present within official rhetoric.

In light of genocidal settler-colonial educational policies towards Indigenous peoples and women’s educational experiences in patriarchal institutions, I examine how Educational Gothic emerged in the 1960s, and I continue to chart its development to the present day. I consider how settler and Indigenous authors use the Gothic genre to discuss women’s educational experiences. I argue that over time, the metaphoric significance of the haunted school heightens so that in the last twenty years, it has become a locus for state abuses and the corruption of settler nationalism.