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Monsters

A Companion

by Simon Bacon (Volume editor)
©2020 Others XX, 280 Pages

Summary

What are Monsters?
Monsters are everywhere, from cyberbullies online to vampires onscreen: the twenty-first century is a monstrous age. The root of the word «monster» means «omen» or «warning», and if monsters frighten us, it’s because they are here to warn us about something amiss in ourselves and in our society. Humanity has given birth to these monsters, and they grow and change with us, carrying the scars of their birth with them.
This collection of original and accessible essays looks at a variety of contemporary monsters from literature, film, television, music and the internet within their respective historical and cultural contexts. Beginning with a critical introduction that explores the concept of the monster in the work of Jeffrey Jerome Cohen, Jack Halberstam, Elaine Showalter and more, the book takes a broad approach to the monster, including not only classic slasher films, serial killers (Bates Motel), the living dead (Game of Thrones) and aliens (District 9), but also hyper-contemporary examples like clones (Orphan Black), cyberbullies (Cyberbully), viral outbreaks (The Strain) and celebrities (Lady Gaga). Gender and culture are especially emphasized in the volume, with essays on the role of gender and sexuality in defining the monster (AHS Apocalypse) and global monsters (Cleverman, La Llorona).
This compact guide to the monster in contemporary culture will be useful to teachers, students and fans looking to expand their understanding of this important cultural figure.

Table Of Contents

  • Cover
  • Title Page
  • Copyright Page
  • About the author
  • About the book
  • This eBook can be cited
  • Contents
  • Acknowledgements
  • Foreword: Culture’s Monsters: Monster Marks (Lindquist 2018) (Sherry C. M. Lindquist)
  • Introduction (Simon Bacon)
  • Part I    Home
  • Madness: The Babadook (Kent, 2014) – Monsters of Mental Illness (Angela M. Smith)
  • Domestic Abuse: The Invisible Man (Whannell, 2020) – Domestic Monsters (Simon Bacon)
  • Paedophilia: The Nightingale (Kent, 2018) – Monsters of Abuse (Phil Fitzsimmons)
  • Immigrants: The Lure (Smoczyńska, 2015) – Monstrous Outsiders (Agnieszka Kotwasińska)
  • Part II    Society
  • The Mask: Slasher Cinema (1978–1998) – Teaching the Monster (John Edgar Browning)
  • The Cyberbully: Cyberbully (Binamé, 2011) – Monsters of Cyberspace (Lauren Rosewarne)
  • Lady Gaga: Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta (1986–present) – Monsters of Celebrity (Anthony Curtis Adler)
  • The Slit-Mouthed Woman: Carved (Shiraishi, 2007) – Monsters of Urban Legend (Alexandra Heller-Nicholas)
  • Melmoth: Melmoth (Perry, 2018) – Monsters of War (W. Scott Poole)
  • Part III     Cultural Intersections
  • Phi Krasue: Inhuman Kiss (Mongkolsiri, 2019) – Thai Monsters (Benjamin Baumann)
  • La habitación del desahogo (2012) – Mexican Monsters (Inés Ordiz)
  • Baba Yaga: Hellboy (Mignola, 1997–2004) – Russian Monsters (Gail de Vos)
  • Deumo: Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (Spielberg, 1984) – Monsters of Colonialism (Partha Mitter)
  • The Hairies: Cleverman (Griffen, 2016–2017) – Aboriginal Monsters (Yasmine Musharbash)
  • Part IV    Gender
  • Satan: The Witch (Eggers, 2015) – Patriarchal Monsters (Eddie Falvey)
  • Warlocks: AHS Apocalypse (Murphy and Falchuk, 2011–present) – Monsters of Masculinity (Emily Brick)
  • She-Wolves: When Animals Dream (Arnby, 2014) – Monsters of Femininity (Craig Ian Mann)
  • Serial Killers: Bates Motel (Ehrin, 2013–2017) – The Queer Monster (Daniel Sheppard)
  • The Skeleton: Game of Thrones (Benioff, 2011–2019) – Monsters of Death (Murray Leeder)
  • Part V     Futures
  • Clones: Orphan Black (Manson and Fawcett, 2013–2017) – Monsters of Reproduction (Leah Richards)
  • The Master: The Strain (del Toro and Hogan, 2014–2017) – Monsters of Contagion (Dahlia Schweitzer)
  • The Ecomonster: Megalohydrothalassophobia (Abhorrence, 2018) – Monsters of the Anthropocene (Carl H. Sederholm)
  • Aliens: District 9 (Blomkamp, 2009) – Monsters of Hybridity (Gerry Canavan)
  • Zombie: The Girl with All the Gifts (Carey, 2014) – Posthuman Monsters (Elana Gomel)
  • Afterword: Becoming Monstrous and the Monster Becoming: Hannibal (Fuller: 2013–2015) (Patricia MacCormack)
  • Bibliography
  • Notes on Contributors
  • Index
  • Series index

cover

Bibliographic information published by Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek. Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data is available on the Internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Description: Oxford ; New York : Peter Lang, 2020. | Series: Genre fiction
and film companions, 26318725 ; 5 | Includes bibliographical references.

Identifiers: LCCN 2020012239 (print) | LCCN 2020012240 (ebook) | ISBN
9781788746649 (paperback) | ISBN 9781788746656 (ebook) | ISBN
9781788746663 (epub) | ISBN 9781788746670 (mobi)

Classification: LCC P96.M6 M64 2020 (print) | LCC P96.M6 (ebook) | DDC
809/.9337--dc23

About the author

Simon Bacon has edited books on various subjects including Undead Memory: Vampires and Human Memory in Popular Culture (2014) and Growing Up with Vampires: Essays on the Undead in Children’s Media (2018), both with Katarzyna Bronk, and Gothic: A Reader (2018), Horror: A Companion (2019), and Transmedia: A Companion (forthcoming). He has published the monographs Becoming Vampire: Difference and the Vampire in Popular Culture (2016), Dracula as Absolute Other: The Troubling and Distracting Specter of Stoker’s Vampire on Screen (2019), and Eco-Vampires: The Vampire as Environmentalist and Undead Eco-activist (2020) and is currently working on Invasion of Vampires From Another World: The Cinematic Alien Progeny of War of the Worlds and Dracula.

About the book

What are Monsters?

Monsters are everywhere, from cyberbullies online to vampires onscreen: the twenty-first century is a monstrous age. The root of the word ‘monster’ means ‘omen’ or ‘warning’, and if monsters frighten us, it’s because they are here to warn us about something amiss in ourselves and in our society. Humanity has given birth to these monsters, and they grow and change with us, carrying the scars of their birth with them.

This collection of original and accessible essays looks at a variety of contemporary monsters from literature, film, television, music and the internet within their respective historical and cultural contexts. Beginning with a critical introduction that explores the concept of the monster in the work of Jeffrey Jerome Cohen, Jack Halberstam, Elaine Showalter and more, the book takes a broad approach to the monster, including not only classic slasher films, serial killers (Bates Motel), the living dead (Game of Thrones) and aliens (District 9), but also hyper-contemporary examples like clones (Orphan Black), cyberbullies (Cyberbully), viral outbreaks (The Strain) and celebrities (Lady Gaga). Gender and culture are especially emphasized in the volume, with essays on the role of gender and sexuality in defining the monster (AHS Apocalypse) and global monsters (Cleverman, La Llorona).

This compact guide to the monster in contemporary culture will be useful to teachers, students and fans looking to expand their understanding of this important cultural figure.

This eBook can be cited

This edition of the eBook can be cited. To enable this we have marked the start and end of a page. In cases where a word straddles a page break, the marker is placed inside the word at exactly the same position as in the physical book. This means that occasionally a word might be bifurcated by this marker.

Contents

Acknowledgements

Sherry C. M. Lindquist

Foreword: Culture’s Monsters: Monster Marks (Lindquist 2018)

Simon Bacon

Introduction

part i    Home

Angela M. Smith

Madness: The Babadook (Kent, 2014) – Monsters of Mental Illness

Simon Bacon

Domestic Abuse: The Invisible Man (Whannell, 2020) – Domestic Monsters

Phil Fitzsimmons

Paedophilia: The Nightingale (Kent, 2018) – Monsters of Abuse

Agnieszka Kotwasińska

Immigrants: The Lure (Smoczyńska, 2015) – Monstrous Outsiders

part ii    Society

John Edgar Browning

The Mask: Slasher Cinema (1978–1998) – Teaching the Monster

Lauren Rosewarne

The Cyberbully: Cyberbully (Binamé, 2011) – Monsters of Cyberspace

Anthony Curtis Adler

Lady Gaga: Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta (1986–present) – Monsters of Celebrity

Alexandra Heller-Nicholas

The Slit-Mouthed Woman: Carved (Shiraishi, 2007) – Monsters of Urban Legend

W. Scott Poole

Melmoth: Melmoth (Perry, 2018) – Monsters of War

part iii    Cultural Intersections

Benjamin Baumann

Phi Krasue: Inhuman Kiss (Mongkolsiri, 2019) – Thai Monsters

Inés Ordiz

La habitación del desahogo (2012) – Mexican Monsters

Gail de Vos

Baba Yaga: Hellboy (Mignola, 1997–2004) – Russian Monsters

Partha Mitter

Deumo: Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (Spielberg, 1984) – Monsters of Colonialism

Yasmine Musharbash

The Hairies: Cleverman (Griffen, 2016–2017) – Aboriginal Monsters

part iv    Gender

Eddie Falvey

Satan: The Witch (Eggers, 2015) – Patriarchal Monsters

Emily Brick

Warlocks: AHS Apocalypse (Murphy and Falchuk, 2011–present) – Monsters of Masculinity

Craig Ian Mann

She-Wolves: When Animals Dream (Arnby, 2014) – Monsters of Femininity

Daniel Sheppard

Serial Killers: Bates Motel (Ehrin, 2013–2017) – The Queer Monster

Murray Leeder

The Skeleton: Game of Thrones (Benioff, 2011–2019) – Monsters of Death

part v    Futures

Leah Richards

Clones: Orphan Black (Manson and Fawcett, 2013–2017) – Monsters of Reproduction

Dahlia Schweitzer

The Master: The Strain (del Toro and Hogan, 2014–2017) – Monsters of Contagion

Carl H. Sederholm

Details

Pages
XX, 280
Year
2020
ISBN (PDF)
9781788746656
ISBN (ePUB)
9781788746663
ISBN (MOBI)
9781788746670
ISBN (Softcover)
9781788746649
DOI
10.3726/b14677
Language
English
Publication date
2020 (September)
Keywords
The cultural and historical evolution of Monsters Manifestations of difference transgression and societal abjection Monsters: A Companion Simon Bacon
Published
Oxford, Bern, Berlin, Bruxelles, New York, Wien, 2020. XX, 280 pp., 65 fig. col., 11 fig. b/w.

Biographical notes

Simon Bacon (Volume editor)

Simon Bacon has edited books on various subjects including Undead Memory: Vampires and Human Memory in Popular Culture (2014) and Growing Up with Vampires: Essays on the Undead in Children’s Media (2018), both with Katarzyna Bronk, and Gothic: A Reader (2018), Horror: A Companion (2019), and Transmedia: A Companion (forthcoming). He has published the monographs Becoming Vampire: Difference and the Vampire in Popular Culture (2016), Dracula as Absolute Other: The Troubling and Distracting Specter of Stoker’s Vampire on Screen (2019), and Eco-Vampires: The Vampire as Environmentalist and Undead Eco-activist (2020) and is currently working on Invasion of Vampires From Another World: The Cinematic Alien Progeny of War of the Worlds and Dracula.

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