Overview

This volume and its companion gather a wide range of readings and sources to enable us to see and understand what monsters show us about what it means to be human. The first volume introduces important modern theorists of the monstrous, with a brief introduction to each reading, setting the theorist and theory in context, and providing background and guiding questions. The selection of readings in Classic Readings on Monster Theory is intended to provide interpretive tools and strategies to use to grapple with the primary sources in the second volume - Primary Sources on Monsters - which brings together some of the most influential and indicative monster narratives from the West. Taken together, these volumes allow us to witness the consistent, multi-millennium strategies the West has articulated, weaponized, and deployed to exclude, disempower, and dehumanize a range of groups and individuals within and without its porous boundaries.

Full Product Details

Author:   Asa Simon Mittman (Professor and Chair of Art & Art History, California State University, Chico) ,  Marcus Hensel (Assistant Professor of English, Bethany College)
Publisher:   Arc Humanities Press
Imprint:   Arc Humanities Press
Edition:   New edition
ISBN:  

9781641894289

ISBN 10:   1641894288
Pages:   446
Publication Date:   30 April 2020
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   In Print  
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Table of Contents

"1. The Battle of Gilgamesh, Enkidu, and Humbaba, from The Epic of Gilgamesh 2. The Nephilim, Goliath, Behemoth and Leviathan, and The Beasts of the Apocalypse, from the Bible 3. Selections from Theogony by Hesiod 4. Odysseus and His Men Encounter the Cyclops, from The Odyssey by Homer 5. Bust of Polyphemus 6. Monstrous Peoples and Beasts, from The Natural History by Pliny the Elder 7. Lycaon and Cadmus, from Metamorphoses by Ovid 8. Selections from City of God by St. Augustine of Hippo 9. The Táin Bó Cúailnge (Cattle Raid of Cooley)  10. Wonders of the East 11. Illuminations of the Donestre, Huntress, and Boar-Tusked Women from Wonders of the East 12. Introduction, Fight with Grendel, the Attack by Grendel's Mother, Fight with Grendel's Mother, and Fight with the Dragon, from Beowulf  13. Modern Images of Grendel by J. H. Frederick Bacon, Julio Castro, Leonard Baskin, and Gareth Hinds 14. Bisclavret by Marie de France  15. Völsunga saga (Saga of the Volsungs) 16. The Life of St. Christopher 17. Illumination of Saint Christopher  18. The Alliterative Morte Arthure 19. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight  20. On Monsters by Ambroise Paré 21. Illustrations of Figure of a Foal with a Human Head; Portrait of a Marvelous Monster; Example of Too Large a Quantity of Semen; Figure of two twin girls, joined together by the posterior parts; Figure of a man from whose belly another man issued, from Ambroise Paré, On Monsters 22. Selections from The Faerie Queene by Edmund Spenser 23. Selections from The Tempest by William Shakespeare 24. Images of Caliban by John Hamilton Mortimer and Charles A. Buchel 25. A Discourse Concerning Prodigies: Wherein the Vanity of Presages by them is Reprehended, and their True and Proper Ends are Indicated by John Spencer 26. Selections from Paradise Lost by John Milton 27. Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley  28. Frontispiece to Frankenstein by Theodor Richard Edward von Holst 29. ""William Wilson"" by Edgar Allan Poe 30. ""Goblin Market"" by Christina Rossetti 31. Illustration of Buy From Us With Golden Curl engraved by Charles Faulkner after design by Dante Gabriel Rossetti 32. ""Jabberwocky"" by Lewis Carroll 33. Illustration of Jabberwocky by John Tenniel 34. ""The Damned Thing"" by Ambrose Bierce 35. Selections from Dracula by Bram Stoker 36. Frontispiece to Bram Stoker, Dracula by ""Nathan"" 37. ""Ancient Sorceries"" by Algernon Blackwood 38. ""The Call of Cthulhu"" by H.P. Lovecraft 39. Sketch of Cthulhu by H.P. Lovecraft 40. ""Shambleau"" by C.L. Moore 41. Trolls and Smaug, The Hobbit, or There and Back Again by J.R.R. Tolkien 42. ""It"" by Theodore Sturgeon 43. ""Fever Dream"" by Ray Bradbury 44. ""The Faceless Thing"" by Edward D. Hoch 45. Selections from Grendel by John Gardner 46. ""Secret Observations on the Goat-Girl"" by Joyce Carol Oates 47. Selections from Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood 48. Slender Man 49. SCP (Special Containment Procedures) Foundation"

Reviews

"""This monster of a two volume reader is exactly what we have long needed: a comprehensive and timely collection of the work that founded monster studies as well as the research that enabled it to become among the most exciting areas of interdisciplinary inquiry within the humanities. But there's more: a wide ranging collation of primary sources spans cultures and centuries. Capacious, inclusive, and brilliantly edited, this two volume set articulates the history of monster studies and promises its vigorous future.""--Jeffrey J. Cohen"

This monster of a two volume reader is exactly what we have long needed: a comprehensive and timely collection of the work that founded monster studies as well as the research that enabled it to become among the most exciting areas of interdisciplinary inquiry within the humanities. But there's more: a wide ranging collation of primary sources spans cultures and centuries. Capacious, inclusive, and brilliantly edited, this two volume set articulates the history of monster studies and promises its vigorous future. --Jeffrey J. Cohen

Author Information

Asa Simon Mittman is Professor and Chair of Art & Art History at California State University, Chico. Marcus Hensel is Assistant Professor of English at Bethany College, Kansas.

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