About the Book
Readers of all stripes will find something to appreciate in this collection, which illuminates how King’s horror literature as a media form has shifted in relation to cultural understandings over time. Many chapters touch upon how surrounding texts, such as film/TV adaptations, have played into these mediations throughout King’s storied career. For the first-time reader of King, this volume offers a doorway into his works: an array of exciting critical frameworks with which to make sense of King’s fictional universe. For literary critics, this volume argues that King’s corpus remains a site for robust intellectual inquiry. And for all of us, the book provides an occasion—one that is long overdue—to rethink King’s relationship to critical theory as well as his legacy as a major American author. While it may prove impossible to reconcile King and the academy, we might nonetheless explore the evolution of their inescapable bond in hopes of negotiating a greater understanding between them.
Table of Contents:
Stephen King and His Critics, Michael Blouin, I. Why Theorize? 1. Reading King Through the Years: Theoretical Permutations, Tony Magistrale, 2. Can't someone else do it? An (Attempted) A-theoretical Reading of Needful Things, Patrick McAleer, 3. Stephen King and the Trouble with Poststructuralism, Michael Blouin, II. Making Meaning, 4. Reading Stephen King Religiously: Scary Stories and the Teaching of Religion, Douglas Cowan, 5. Stephen King's and Peter Staub's Mythmaking: Jack Sawyer as an American Hero, Daniel Compora, 6. The Gospel (Paraphrase): King and Christian Epigraphs, Rebecca Frost, 7. Excursus on Suffering, Meaning, and Metaphysics in Stephen King's Revival, Jacob Held, III. Adapting Stephen King, 8. Cinematic Skeleton Crew: Adapting Stephen King in the Mid-1980s, Joseph Maddrey and Carl H. Sederholm, 9. Towards Infection: Viral Adaptations of King, Matthew Holtmeier and Chelsea Wessels, IV. New Critical Interventions, 10. Is Zelda dead yet?: Disability, Mortality, and Narratives of Appropriation in Pet Sematary, Melissa Raines, 11. For you the sun never came back out: Theorizing Trauma in It and Gerald's Game, Laura Mulcahy, 12. Choosing to See: Gardening It within The Upside Down without a Cord, Michael Perry, 13. the tongueless voice of the temple whispered: Delirious Voices in Rose Madder, Theresa Mae Thompson, 14. A Lovecraftian Critique of the Art of Stephen King, Greg Littmann, 15. A Certain Rough Justice: Stephen King, Digital Activism, and Donald Trump - Philip Simpson, 16. Dead Is Better: Pet Sematary and Animal Studies, Sarah D. Nilsen, 17. Author Functions: Stephen King's Writers, effrey Andrew Weinstock, Index.
About the Author :
Michael J. Blouin, PhD is a professor of English and Humanities at Milligan University. His recent publications include Democracy and the American Gothic (2024), Stephen King and American Politics(2021) and Stephen King and American History (2020). Blouin’s primary research interests are horror, popular culture, and critical theory.
Review :
The manuscript absolutely offers new insights and concepts. The variety of authors, with their individual focuses, examine King through innovative and thought-provoking lenses., - Bev Vincent, author of Stephen King: A Complete Exploration of His Work, Life, and Influences,
This informative volume on theorizing Stephen King is an important addition to the study of King's fiction and should most definitely be a required text for any new (or seasoned) King scholar. Blouin masterful start to the volume with Stephen King does not much care for English Professors immediately calls out the elephant in the room that all King scholars know, and then carefully constructs a framework of why we, as King scholars, should care. From long-time King scholar Tony Magistrale's in-depth analysis of theorizing King through the years (an absolute must read for everyone!), to Patrick McAleer's analysis of what I consider the lost King novels that are worthy of, but never received the amount of scholarly attention as King's more popular works, to Douglas Cowan's focus on King's religious themes, to Jeffrey Weinstock's focus on King's writers, this book is an important and needed addition to the currently available scholarship on Stephen King., - Mary Finley, Vermont State University
