Beyond the Monstrous: Reading from the Cultural Imaginary

Twenty-first century's fascination with monsters in popular culture is not new. Throughout history, many of the world's cultures have created beings they deem 'other' and 'monstrous,' beings which, many scholars agree, ultimately reveal humans' own fears about themselves. This collection of interdisciplinary studies, Beyond the Monstrous: Readings from the Cultural Imaginary, explores constructions of the 'monstrous' from several vantage points, such as the popularity of today's Twilight saga, to the hermaphrodite and questions of sexuality in seventeenth-century English print culture, and to the post-industrial ruins of Japan's landscapes. The scholars of this text demonstrate that concepts of monstrosity frequently veil socio-political anxieties of a given culture or historical moment. More significantly, the scholars here emphasise the ethical ramifications of the ways in which humanity creates, analyses, and treats its monsters.

Table of Contents:
Introduction: Reading beyond the Monstrous Janice Zehentbauer Part I: Monstrous Women Monsters in the Shadows: Brahmin Widows in Twentieth-Century India Sarah Rangaratnam Sympathy for the She-Devil: Poison Women and Vengeful Ghosts in the Films of Nakagawa Nobuo Michael E. Crandol The Monster Inside Me: Unnatural Births in Early Modern Italian and French Fairy Tales Belinda Calderone Part II: The Age of Monstrosity: Teens and Beyond Narrativizing Sexual Deviance as both Symptom and Fantasy: The Perverse Sexuality of the Wolf-Child Steven Rita-Proctor The Lost Boys?! Monstrous Youth of the Cinematic Teenage Vampire Simon Bacon Mirror, Mirror on the Wall: Youth, Age and the Monstrosity of Beauty in The Twilight Saga Monica Dufault Part III: Beyond Gender Print Culture and the Monstrous Hermaphrodite in Early Modern England Whitney Dirks-Schuster Monstrous Hermaphrodites: Jeffrey Eugenide's Middlesex, the Intersexed Individual and the Bildungsroman Rowan Roux Who Mourns for Godzilla? Gojira and De-Asianization of Post-War Japan Steven A. Nardi and Munehito Moro Part IV: Monstrosity, Racism (and Imperialism) Spectres of Capitalism: Ghostly Labour and the Topography of Ruin in Post-Industrial Japan Norihiko Tsuneishi Monsters and Survivors in Oates's Jewish American Saga Maria Luisa Pascual-Garrido Grave Tales, Monstrous Realities Louise Katz

About the Author :
Janice Zehentbauer is at the Department of Comparative Literature at Western University, in London, Ontario, Canada. Her research interests focus on the intersections of perception, neurological illnesses, medicine and technology in late nineteenth-century European novels and medical treatises. Eva Gledhill holds a Masters of Arts in Cultural Studies and Critical theory and Analysis from Birkbeck College, University of London.