Monster Theory: Reading CultureJeffrey Jerome Cohen We live in a time of monsters. Monsters provide a key to understanding the culture that spawned them. So argue the essays in this wide-ranging and fascinating collection that asks the question, What happens when critical theorists take the study of monsters seriously as a means of examining our culture? In viewing the monstrous body as a metaphor for the cultural body, the contributors to Monster Theory consider beasts, demons, freaks, and fiends as symbolic expressions of cultural unease that pervade a society and shape its collective behavior. Through a historical sampling of monsters, these essays argue that our fascination for the monstrous testifies to our continued desire to explore difference and prohibition. Contributors: Mary Baine Campbell, Brandeis U; David L. Clark, McMaster U; Frank Grady, U of Missouri, St. Louis; David A. Hedrich Hirsch, U of Illinois; Lawrence D. Kritzman, Dartmouth College; Kathleen Perry Long, Cornell U; Stephen Pender; Allison Pingree, Harvard U; Anne Lake Prescott, Barnard College; John O'Neill, York U; William Sayers, George Washington U; Michael Uebel, U of Virginia; Ruth Waterhouse. |
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abjection aesthetic American Anne Rice argues Artus becomes Beowulf birth body boundaries bp Nichol brothers Bulwer's century Chang and Eng chap Christian conjoined twins creature crusade cultural death deformity desire difference discourse domestic Dracula draugr early modern English essay example Eyrbyggja saga family sagas female fiction figure Frankenstein Gargantua gender genre giant Glámr Grendel Grendel's mother Grettir hermaphrodites human hypogrammatism Icelandic identity ideology imagination Islam John Jurassic Park language Latin letter linguistic literal living London Man's Martin Guerre Martyrology Mary Mary Shelley meaning medieval metaphor monster monstrous Montaigne Montaigne's Muslim narrative nature Nichol novel Peter the Venerable poem political postmodern pygmy question relation representations revenant rhetoric Rice's Saracens seems sense sexual Shelley Shelley's Siamese Twins signifier signs social society suggests supernatural symbolic tion trans translation University Press unthought Vampire Lestat women words writing York