This final chapter addresses the loaded question of gothic naming, considering how and why it remains valuable to understand fiction with diverse regional and cultural roots within a (world-)gothic horizon. First we will briefly rehearse the argument that underpins one of this volume’s claim: namely, that to extricate gothic studies from the taxonomic bind in which it is placed concerning fiction from beyond the so-called West, the origin story of the gothic needs to be reconceived. Second we build on and draw together world-cultural and postcolonial theorisations of catachresis to conceptualise the categorisation and linking of discrete world-cultural forms as world-gothic. For ‘the gothic’ to remain useful as a way of designating fiction, we suggest that the term should be understood as just one possible name, which catachrestically – imperfectly and partially – describes heterogeneous and always situated cultural, folk and spiritual responses to the socio-ecological changes wrought in uneven ways by the capitalist world-system.

In Constitutional Identity, Gary Jacobsohn highlights the tension both within constitutional systems and between constitutions and societal norms (culture). In this essay, we explore the first tension and glance at the second. One objective of the essay is to enumerate a set of “disharmonies” that appear with some frequency within constitutions and, employing historical data, identify the constitutional systems that contain them. Appealing to formal logic, we develop a taxonomy that helps us understand the kinds of disharmonies on display; a taxonomy that points to their sources. The essay thus generalizes Jacobsohn’s notion of disharmony and extends his insights from a small set of cases that begin with the letter “I” to a larger set.

William P. Brown explores the pedagogy of the wisdom literature. He argues that wisdom is dynamic as it is imparted between individuals, and that it finds its telos in human character development. This dynamic pedagogy is versatile. Sometimes (especially Proverbs 1–9), it manifests itself in rebuke, pronounced hierarchically in the matrix of patriarchal authority. Rebuke, though, can also be dialogic; in Proverbs, the wise also impart it amongst themselves. Both models of rebuke are evident in Job, where Job and his friends reciprocally rebuke each other, and God hierarchically rebukes Job. God’s rebuke, though, is not simply belittling, rather eliciting wonder through the pedagogy of the Master Poet. These texts also teach through testimony – Qohelet invokes his personal observations and investigations, and Wisdom herself testifies to her role in creation (Proverbs 8). Here, Wisdom comes alongside readers as a playing child, and welcomes them as a gracious host. Finally, proverbs have pedagogical power, revelling in comparison, paradox, irony, and metaphor.