This study examines how newspaper accounts of criminality conceal and illu-minate particular types of monstrosity in the postbellum United States. The paper offers ananalysis of Gothicism—which typically frames the criminality of marginalized groups—asa technique of racial domination in narrative sites that construct knowledge on criminalityand punishment. Analysis reveals a paradoxical lens of Gothicism in which oppressivegroups can conceal monstrosity within a colonial context. The analysis of gothic accountsof criminality challenges the ways in which denial shapes modern monstrosit

• The Knowing of Monstrosities: Necropower, SpectacularPunishment and Denia