Anneleen Masschelein is Assistant Professor in Literary Theory and Cultural Studies at the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium and Postdoctoral Researcher at the National Fund of Scientific Research, Flanders.

• PrefaceChapter 1: Introduction 1. A Genealogy of the Uncanny2. Different Stages in the Conceptualization of the UncanFFny3. The Uncanny as Unconcept4. A Functionalist-Discursive Perspective5.(Re)Constructing a Map of ConceptualizationsChapter 2: The Position of the Uncanny in Freud’s Oeuvre 1. Follow the Index?2. The Uncanny as a Symptom in Daily life and Pathology3. From Compulsion to Taboo: The Surmounted Phylogenetic Origin of the Uncanny4. The Uncanny and Theoretical Revisions5. The Uncanny and Anxiety—I6. The Uncanny: A Psychoanalytic Concept?Chapter 3: Preliminaries to Concept Formation 1. Further Explorations of the Uncanny2. The Uncanny and Anxiety—II3. The Uncanny and Genre Studies4. The Uncanny as Aesthetic Category: Toward a Theory of the UncannyChapter 4: Tying the Knot: The Conceptualization of the Uncanny 1. An Era of Transcontinental Conceptualizations2. Two Poetics: Todorov and Cixous3. Poetical Structuralism: Todorov’s The Fantastic4. The Uncanny and the Fantastic5. The Fantastic and Psychoanalysis6. Birth and Death of the Fantastic7. Transformations of the Fantastic8. Chasing Freud’s Chase: Cixous’s "Fiction and its Phantoms"9. "The Uncanny" as Missing Link10. "Fiction and its Phantoms" as Quest in the Labyrinth11. Pull the Strings12. Cixous and Derrida: The Uncanny as a Theory of Fiction Chapter 5: The Uncanny: A Late Twentieth-Century Concept 1. The Canonization of the Uncanny2. A Tradition of Rereadings of "The Uncanny"3. The Dissemination of the Uncanny4. The "Post-Romantic—Aesthetic" Tradition5. The Unhomely and Existential and Political Alienation6. Hauntology7. The Uncanny and Contemporary Culture Chapter 6: Concluding Remarks NotesBibliographyIndex

"…[a] daring and erudite study … The Unconcept accomplishes an impressive feat. Masschelein admirably unfolds the century-long formation of an important literary concept as if she is narrating a story—albeit, a densely theoretical tale, and one more edifying as a reference than as a pleasure. Her copious notes and bibliography alone qualify this book as an important contribution to scholarship and a formidable resource for scholars working in the realm of the uncanny." — Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts"The Unconcept is ambitious, meticulously researched, and, much like the Freudian term it examines, intensely self-conscious … [it] delivers a careful diachronic analysis of a haunting theoretical concept, mapping its century-long journey to the center of our attention." — IMPACT