Titles of Interest – Beyond the Monstrous: Reading from the Cultural Imaginary

Beyond the Monstrous: Reading from the Cultural Imaginary (Inter-Disciplinary Press, 2013), edited by Janice Zehentbauer and Eva Gledhill

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.

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