Henrik Johnsson is Professor of Nordic Literature at Østfold University College, Norway. He holds a PhD in the history of literature from Stockholm University. He is the author of two monographs on the oeuvre of August Strindberg – Strindberg and Horror: Horror Motifs and the Theme of Identity in the Works of August Strindberg (2009) and The Infinite Coherence: August Strindberg’s Occult Science (2015). He is coeditor with Tessel M. Bauduin of the anthology The Occult in Modernist Art, Literature, and Cinema (2018). His current research explores the intersection of horror and desire in Nordic Gothic fiction.

• IntroductionMorel and the rise of degeneration discourseMarriage, family, and incestDisease, diathesis, and syphilisEnergetic economy and the fixed fund of energy theoryWhat does Ibsen do with degeneration discourse?A note on the form and scope of the bookChapter 1. The Rot of the Bourgeois Body: Ghosts (1881)Ibsen’s commentary on GhostsThe raising of bourgeois childrenClass, health, and sexBourgeois patriarchy and Helene’s independenceAlving’s decline and fallOsvald’s energetic inheritanceRegine and regenerationChapter 2. The Fall of the Old Order: Rosmersholm (1886)Hvide heste and its relationship to RosmersholmRosmer, Kroll, and the fall of the old orderMarriage as the scene of threats to the social fabricStrength and weakness of willBrendel and the forces of entropyThe useless deaths of Rosmer and RebekkaChapter 3. Dominance and Deviance: Hedda Gabler (1890)August Strindberg’s “For Payment” as intertextDegeneration in Ibsen’s notes to Hedda GablerThe question of Hedda’s sexualityTesman as failed patriarchHedda’s need for dominationLøvborg’s loss of manhoodSexual competition and exclusivityHedda’s wasteful death4. Conclusion