Inversions of Power and Paradox: Studying Monstrosity: N/a Studying Monstrosity

This volume was first published by Inter-Disciplinary Press in 2012.

This volume contains original essays presented at the eighth annual "Monsters and the Monstrous" conference held at Oxford University, September 2010. The essays, written by scholars from many different disciplines around the world, deeply explore a wide range of concerns, especially topics that theorize, problematize, and historicize monstrosity. The variety of approaches to the monstrous prompts careful examination of conventional assumptions about monstrosity, raising questions that are difficult, necessary, and profound.

Like all of the Monsters and the Monstrous gatherings, the essays in this collection ponder such perennial questions as: Does evil exist? How do we define it? In what ways might our definition reflect the social, political, economic, and cultural milieu? Is there any aspect of evil, monsters, or the monstrous that is not socially constructed, that is to say, essential and enduring?

We know what does endure: our fascination with monsters and the monstrous, in their many forms, representations, and imaginings. We are preoccupied by monstrosity precisely because of the ways in which we ourselves can become monstrous. Marshall McLuhan once quipped: "the story of modern America begins with the discovery of the white man by the Indians." In many regards, McLuhan's quip reminds us of the dangers (and excitement) of studying monstrosity: the power and paradox of inversion. When we consider the phenomenon of monstrosity and invert our terms, we must take seriously the idea that the virgin may be more monstrous than the sexual subject, the pure more monstrous than the soiled, and sanity is more monstrous than genius.

Table of Contents:
Introduction Jonathan A. Allan and Elizabeth E. Nelson Part 1: Gender and Monstrosity Wolfsbane, Fangs and Hirsute Heretics: Tracing the Confluences between Lycanthropy, Witchcraft and Vampirism in the Female Werewolf Jazmina Cininas Snakes on a Mane: Medusa, the Body and Serpentine Monstrosity Melissa La Porte The Female of the Species: Monstrous Women in Thai Horror Cinema Milagros Exposito-Barea Deviant Mothers: Annie Vivanti's The Devourers Anne Urbancic The Monstrous Maternal: Precarious Motherhood in the Poetry of Marosa di Giorgio Jeannine M. Pitas The Wasp Factory: A Story of Monsters and Victims F. Zeynep Bilge Returning Desire with Death: Evil Dolls Claudia Peppel Theorising the Monstrous and the Virginal in Popular Romance Novels Jonathan A. Allan Sacrificing Virginity, or Taming (Im)potency in Contemporary Women's Fiction Cristina Santos Part 2: Art and Monstrosity New Transgenic Monsters: Bioart and Teratology Aline Ferreira The Monster in the Sketch Kendra Schank Smith and Albert C. Smith The Monstrosity of Memory: Architecture as a Medium of Cultural Transmission of Trauma Zuzanna Dziuban The Role of Architecture of Psychiatric Environments in Making the Monstrous to Monster, Strangers to Aliens or Vice Versa Katerina Panagaki The Monstrous Eye (Set at f/5.6) Joanna Madloch Tormented: Affective Neuroscience, Ethics, and the Portrayal of Evil Elizabeth E. Nelson Facing Monstrosity in Stephen King's Pet Sematary John Sears Goo Goo Muck Ian Haig Monstrous Literature: The Case of Dacre Stoker's Dracula the Undead Hannah Priest Part 3: Culture and Monstrosity Sleeping Dragons, Fighting Dragons Dan Marshall Of Gods and Monsters: Personal Religio-Mythic Narrative Identity and the Regenerated Doctor Who (2005) Jessica Garrahy Monsters in Advertising Simona Klaus Monstrous Representations of Self and Other in Eighteenth-Century Satire Kerstin Frank Of Humans and Monsters: Monstrous Representations of Foreigner in Wuthering Heights Pin-Ching Huang Troping the Monstrous Body Politic: H. G. Wells' The Time Machine (1895) and Alasdair Gray's Lanark. A Life in Four Books (1981) Carmen-Veronica Borbely The Return of the Flying Heads Ann Appleton Part 4: Politics and Monstrosity Monster Moms: A Typology of Maternal Filicide Capital Offenders Shauna Papenbrook and Crystal Ward Monster Crusades: The Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children from the Lair to the Keyboard Caitlin Janzen Zombie Tourism: Conor McMahon's Dead Meat Ken Monteith Monstrosity and the Unconscious: Xenophobic Violence in South African Society Ralph Goodman Kimveer Gill: Media(ted) Representations of National Alien Julie Gregory and Samah Sabra

About the Author :
Elizabeth Nelson is core faculty and director of the Dissertation Office at Pacifica Graduate Institute in California. She teaches courses in research, dissertation development, and somatics to doctoral students in depth psychology. Her own research interests include the mythological representations of the feminine, ancient and contemporary gender relations, and the shadow, evil, and the monstrous.

Jonathan A. Allan is a PhD Candidate at the Centre for Comparative Literature at the University of Toronto. His dissertation, “The First Time and the Mourning After: A Study of Love, Loss, and Virginity,” considers the question of “the first time” and how we understand and experience it. His research interests include: flirting, kissing, romance, and virginity. The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada has funded his research.