Description
Book SynopsisHosting the Monster responds to the call of the monstrous with, not rejection, but invitation. Positing the monster as that which defies classification, the essays in this collection are an ongoing engagement with that which lies outside of established boundaries. With chapters ranging from the monstrous mother or the deformed child to subjectivity in transition, this volume is not only of interest to film and gender scholars and literary and cultural theorists but also students of popular culture or horror. Its wide appeal stems from its invitation both to entertain the monster and to widen the call to and the listening for the monsters that have not yet, and perhaps must not yet, come calling back. This sense of hospitality and non-hostility is one guiding principle of this collection, suggesting that the ability to survey and research the otherwise may reveal more about the subjectivity of the self through the wisdom of the other, however monstrous the manifestation.
Table of ContentsPreface Holly Lynn BAUMGARTNER and Roger DAVIS: Hosting the Monster: Introduction Duane W. KIGHT: “I Live in the Weak and the Wounded”: The Monster of Brad Anderson’s Session 9 Amaya MURUZÁBAL MURUZÁBAL: The Monster as a Victim of War: The Returning Veteran in The Best Years of Our Lives Lucy FIFE: Human Monstrosity: Rape, Ambiguity and Performance in Rosemary’s Baby Inderjit GREWAL: The Monstrous and Maternal in Toni Morrison’s Beloved Hannah PRIEST: The Witch and the Werewolf: Rebirth and Subjectivity in Medieval Verse Holly Lynn BAUMGARTNER: It’s Never the Bass: Opera’s True Transgressors Sing Soprano Katherine ANGELL: Joseph Merrick and the Concept of Monstrosity in Nineteenth Century Medical Thought Jessica WEBB: Herculine Barbin: Human Error, Criminality and the Case of the Monstrous Hermaphrodite Cecilia A. FEILLA: Literary Monsters: Gender, Genius, and Writing in Denis Diderot’s ‘On Women’ and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein Sorcha NÍ FHLAINN: Sweet, Bloody Vengeance: Class, Social Stigma and Servitude in the Slasher Genre. David M. KINGSLEY: It Came from Four-Colour Fiction: The Effect of Cold War Comic Books on the Fiction of Stephen King Liesbet DEPAUW: The Monsters that Failed to Scare: The Atypical Reception of the 1930s Horror Films in Belgium Roger DAVIS: “a white illusion of a man”: Snowman, Survival and Speculation in Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake Notes on Contributors
