The Symbolic Potential of the Hybrid: Anita Blake and Horror and Vampire Literature
Summary
Excerpt
Table Of Contents
- Cover
- Title
- Copyright
- About the author
- About the book
- This eBook can be cited
- Acknowledgements
- Abstract
- Table of Contents
- Introduction and Methodology
- Female Monstrosity
- Self-Reflexivity
- Paranoia
- Outline of This Work
- Methodology
- Genealogy
- Chapter One: Navigating Gothic Monstrosity
- Reading Monsters though Foucault
- Turner’s Contribution to the Debate
- Not Here nor There: Vampires and Zombies as ‘Liminal’ Creatures
- Provisional Conclusions on Monstrosity
- Chapter Two: Genealogy of Desire
- Dracula: Notes on the Imperial Construction of Otherness
- Dracula’s Landscape: ‘Fossils’ and ‘Shadows’
- Lucy Westenra or the Female Malady
- Fin de Siècle Insanity: Some Impressionistic Sketches
- Mina Harker or a ‘New Woman’
- Dracula’s Professional Lady Love
- Provisional Conclusions on Imperial Otherness
- Chapter Three: Genealogy of Fear
- Orientalism and Africanism in the Creation of Haitian Subjects
- A Corpse with No Name: First Horror Stories
- From ‘Anti-negro thought’ to Military Occupation
- The Classics between Ethnography and Capital Critique: The Magic Island
- Zombies Go to the Movies
- White Zombie: Universal Studios, 1932
- Background Curtain: Haiti
- The Bokor, Voodoo and Haitian Alterity
- Preliminary Conclusions on the Rotting Corpse
- Cartography
- Chapter Four: Playing in the Dark
- First Landmark: Scary Sexual Creatures
- Second Landmark: Coloured Metaphors
- Female Vampires Play in the Dark
- A New Vampire Self: Lesbianism as a Site of Resistance
- On Vampirism: Reflections on Nurturing and Devouring
- Re-signifying the Zombie: On Nationalism and Identity
- From Black Shame to Black Pride: Provisional Conclusions on the Re-signified Undead
- Crossroads
- Chapter Five: On the Colour Line
- Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter/Zombie Queen
- Locating the Mestiza: A Cartography
- Anita Blake between Anzaldua’s Mestiza and Africanism
- Dominga Salvador versus Anita: Whiteness Saves You, Chica!
- Provisional Conclusions on Whiteness and Otherness
- Chapter Six: The Remake of the Beasty Boys
- The Hard and the Soft Man: A Theoretical Approach
- Richard Zeeman: Moving towards Hardness
- Badinter, Feminist Fiction and Androgyny
- Jean-Claude: The Androgynous Vampire
- Provisional Conclusions on Desirable Masculinity(s)
- Chapter Seven: Let’s Talk about Sex, Baby
- Sex in the Eighties: Mapping the Radical Field of Battle
- ‘Intercourse’ and Vampiric Rape
- Pro-sex Perspective
- ‘Excessive’ Sexuality: The Ardeur
- Provisional Conclusions on ‘Play-Full’ Sexuality
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Series index
Introduction and Methodology
The seemingly banal pop cultural text, with its direct connection to mass culturally shaped assumptions, is […] far more likely to reveal the key terms and conditions of the dominant than an earnest and ‘knowing’ text.
Judith Halberstam
Anxiety assaults me every time I enter a bookshop looking at the number of shelves stuffed with neo-gothic novels and urban fantasy–paranormal fiction. Despite the initial paralysis and the sense of being lost, I had – over time – no difficulties in finding books that could satisfy my craving for adventure, drama or romance. From the Twilight Saga to Black Dagger Legacy through Sookie Stackhouse, the neo-gothic cultural industry offers the reader a great variety of stories; my personal collection constitutes a sample of how beings that have been traditionally at war with each other coexist in the contemporary imaginary landscape. These creatures cooperate, fall in love or sacrifice themselves for the good of others in the new heteromorphous setting provided by serial paranormal fiction in the neoliberal era.1 In other words, despite Callois’ scepticism, monsters from horror movies exist side by side those that have historically belonged to the realm of science fiction or fantasy tales.2
The same feeling will probably assault anybody who wished to follow the development of vampire and other monsters’ adventures on film: from the thirties on, the big screen has been invaded by all sorts of monstrous creatures: mummies, zombies, werewolves and the like.3 For this very reason, that is to say, the abundance of artefacts concerned with monstrous creatures, ←15 | 16→monstrosity has represented a major enterprise for contemporary critics, particularly those working in the field of Cultural Studies. From anthropological explorations of monsters in traditional societies4 to the study of contemporary fiction as an expression of the impact of neoliberal economies and ideologies on human communities,5 academic libraries provide the neophyte with a great number of theoretical texts to start exploring a variety of issues:
Details
- Pages
- 212
- Publication Year
- 2021
- ISBN (PDF)
- 9783631863886
- ISBN (ePUB)
- 9783631863893
- ISBN (Hardcover)
- 9783631857205
- DOI
- 10.3726/b18797
- Language
- English
- Publication date
- 2021 (October)
- Keywords
- Cartography Genealogy of Desire Genealogy of Fear Let’s talk about sex, baby! Navigating Gothic Monstrosity On the Colour Line Playing in the Dark The Remake of the Beasty Boys
- Published
- Berlin, Bern, Bruxelles, New York, Oxford, Warszawa, Wien, 2021. 212 pp.
- Product Safety
- Peter Lang Group AG
