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Monsieur Mediocre: One American Learns the High Art of Being Everyday French
by John von SothenA hilarious, candid account of what life in France is actually like, from a writer for Vanity Fair and GQAmericans love to love Paris. We buy books about how the French parent, why French women don't get fat, and how to be Parisian wherever you are. While our work hours increase every year, we think longingly of the six weeks of vacation the French enjoy, imagining them at the seaside in stripes with plates of fruits de mer.John von Sothen fell in love with Paris through the stories his mother told of her year spent there as a student. And then, after falling for and marrying a French waitress he met in New York, von Sothen moved to Paris. But fifteen years in, he's finally ready to admit his mother's Paris is mostly a fantasy. In this hilarious and delightful collection of essays, von Sothen walks us through real life in Paris--not only myth-busting our Parisian daydreams but also revealing the inimitable and too often invisible pleasures of family life abroad. Relentlessly funny and full of incisive observations, Monsieur Mediocre is ultimately a love letter to France--to its absurdities, its history, its ideals--but it's a very French love letter: frank, smoky, unsentimental. It is a clear-eyed ode to a beautiful, complex, contradictory country from someone who both eagerly and grudgingly calls it home.
Monster Anthropology in Australasia and Beyond
by Yasmine Musharbash Geir Henning PresterudstuenOffering a dialogue between anthropology and literature, culture, and media, this book presents fine-grained ethnographic vignettes of monsters dwelling in the contemporary world. These monsters hail from Aboriginal Australia, the Pacific, Asia, and Europe, and their presence is inextricably intertwined with the lives of those they haunt.
Monster Anthropology: Ethnographic Explorations of Transforming Social Worlds Through Monsters (Criminal Practice Ser.)
by Yasmine MusharbashMonsters are culturally meaningful across the world. Starting from this key premise, this book tackles monsters in the context of social change. Writing in a time of violent upheaval, when technological innovation brings forth new monsters while others perish as part of the widespread extinctions that signify the Anthropocene, contributors argue that putting monsters at the center of social analysis opens up new perspectives on change and social transformation. Through a series of ethnographically grounded analyses they capture monsters that herald, drive, experience, enjoy, and suffer the transformations of the worlds they beleaguer. Topics examined include the evil skulking new roads in Ancient Greece, terror in post-socialist Laos’s territorial cults, a horrific flying head that augurs catastrophe in the rain forest of Borneo, benign spirits that accompany people through the mist in Iceland, flesh-eating giants marching through neo-colonial central Australia, and ghosts lingering in Pacific villages in the aftermath of environmental disasters. By taking the proposition that monsters and the humans they haunt are intricately and intimately entangled seriously, this book offers unique, cross-cultural perspectives on how people perceive the world and their place within it. It also shows how these experiences of belonging are mediated by our relationships with the other-than-human.
Monster Files: A Look Inside Government Secrets and Classified Documents on Bizarre Creatures and Extraordinary Animals
by Nick RedfernThe author of Three Men Seeking Monsters investigates what the government isn&’t telling us about strange creatures from Werewolves to psychic pets. Rumors have circulated for decades that government agencies across the world have been secretly collecting and studying data on bizarre beasts, amazing animals, and strange creatures. Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, sea serpents, psychic pets, the chupacabras, and the abominable snowman have all attracted official, classified interest. Now the full, fearsome facts are finally revealed in Nick Redfern&’s Monster Files. In these pages, you will discover all the amazing truths, conspiracies, and cover-ups behind the secret studies by the Pentagon, the Kremlin, and the British military, among many others. Despite what your parents might have told you when you were a child, monsters really do exist. And our governments know all about them.
Monster Kids: How Pokémon Taught a Generation to Catch Them All
by Daniel DockeryThe definitive, behind-the-scenes look at why Pokémon's evolution from a single Japanese video game to global powerhouse captured the world's attention, and how the "gotta catch 'em all" mentality of its fanbase shaped pop culture—and continues to do so today. More than just a simple journey through the history of Pokémon, Daniel Dockery offers an in-depth look at the franchise&’s many branches of impact and influence. With dozens of firsthand interviews, Monster Kids covers its beginnings as a Japanese video game created to recapture one man's love of bug-collecting as a child before diving into the decisions and conditions that would ultimately lead to that game's global domination. With its continued growth as television shows, spin-off video games, blockbuster movies, trading cards, and toys, Pokémon is a unique and special brand that manages to continue to capture the attention and adoration of its eager fanbase 25 years after its initial release. Whether it was new animated shows like Digimon, Cardcaptors, and Yu-Gi-Oh!; the rise of monster-catching video games and trading card games; and more, Pikachu, the king of pop culture in the '90s, opened the doors in America to those hoping to capture some of Pokémon's dedicated fans. In Monster Kids, Dockery combines the personal stories of the people who helped bring Pokémon to the global stage with affection and humor, making this book the ultimate look at the rise of the franchise in Japan and then North America, but also the generation of kids whose passion for "catching them all" created a unique cultural phenomenon that continues to make a profound impact today.
Monster Science: Could Monsters Survive (and Thrive!) in the Real World
by Helaine BeckerThere's also historical background on each monster, as well as trivia and jokes in sidebars, and fun quizzes at the end of every chapter for readers to test their knowledge. Becker uses the never-ending appetite for all things monster to engage the imaginations of children and get them excited about science.
Monster Spotter's Guide to North America
by Scott FrancisLike a bird-watching guideà only for monstersMonsters represent the dark side of humanity–the primal, animal impulses that reside in every single one of us. They have preyed upon our imaginations and our fears since the dawn of civilization.North America is home to a wide array of fearsome beasts, including hairy monsters, flying monsters, lake monsters, and other unexplained phenomena. Monster Spotter's Guide geographically catalogs more than one hundred legendary monsters reported to inhabit the continent.From the mythical Sasquatch of the Pacific Northwest to the vicious Mexican goatsucker known as El Chupacabra, you'll read about the legends and major sightings of the most widely feared creatures reported to exist–plus a few you might have never heard of.Within these pages you'll find detailed pen-and-ink drawings, helpful quick-reference boxes for immediate identification of key monster traits, a glossary of cryptozoology terms, useful appendices, case studies and more.Let this book be your guide, and explore the legends for yourself. Anyone can be a monster spotteràwhen you start looking, you never know what you might find.
Monster Spotter's Guide to North America
by Scott FrancisLike a bird-watching guideà only for monstersMonsters represent the dark side of humanity–the primal, animal impulses that reside in every single one of us. They have preyed upon our imaginations and our fears since the dawn of civilization.North America is home to a wide array of fearsome beasts, including hairy monsters, flying monsters, lake monsters, and other unexplained phenomena. Monster Spotter's Guide geographically catalogs more than one hundred legendary monsters reported to inhabit the continent.From the mythical Sasquatch of the Pacific Northwest to the vicious Mexican goatsucker known as El Chupacabra, you'll read about the legends and major sightings of the most widely feared creatures reported to exist–plus a few you might have never heard of.Within these pages you'll find detailed pen-and-ink drawings, helpful quick-reference boxes for immediate identification of key monster traits, a glossary of cryptozoology terms, useful appendices, case studies and more.Let this book be your guide, and explore the legends for yourself. Anyone can be a monster spotteràwhen you start looking, you never know what you might find.
Monster Trek: The Obsessive Search for Bigfoot
by Joe GisondiBigfoot sightings have been reported in every state except Hawaii. Interest in this creature, which many believe to be as mythical as a leprechaun, is as strong today as ever, with the wildly popular show Finding Bigfoot persisting on the Animal Planet network and references to bigfoot appearing throughout popular culture. What is it about bigfoot that causes some people to devote a chunk of their lives to finding one?In Monster Trek, Joe Gisondi brings to life the celebrities in bigfoot culture: people such as Matt Moneymaker, Jeff Meldrum, and Cliff Barackman, who explore remote wooded areas of the country for weeks at a time and spend thousands of dollars on infrared imagers, cameras, and high-end camping equipment. Pursuing the answer to why these seekers of bigfoot do what they do, Gisondi brings to the reader their most interesting—and in many cases, harrowing—expeditions.Gisondi travels to eight locations across the country, trekking into swamps, mountains, state parks, and remote woods with people in search of bigfoot as well as fame, fortune, adventure, and shared camaraderie. Many of the people who look for bigfoot, however, go counter to stereotypes and include teachers, engineers, and bankers. Some are private and guarded about their explorations, seeking solitude during a deeply personal quest. While there are those who might arguably be labeled “crazy,” Gisondi discovers that the bigfoot research network is far bigger and more diverse than he ever imagined.
Monster/Beauty: Building the Body of Love
by Joanna FruehThis daring, intensely personal book challenges both conventional and feminist ideas about beauty by asking us to take pleasure in beauty without shame, and to see and feel the erotic in everyday life. Bringing together her varied experiences as a poet, art historian, bodybuilder, and noted performance artist, Joanna Frueh shows us how to move beyond society's equation of youth with beauty toward an aesthetic for the fully erotic human being. A lush combination of autobiography, theory, photography, and poetry, this book continues to develop the ideas about the erotic, beauty, older women, sex, and pleasure that Frueh first addressed in Erotic Faculties. Monster/Beauty examines these issues using a provocative, often explicit, set of examples. Frueh admiringly looks at the bodies and mindsets of midlife female bodybuilders, rethinks the vampire, and revises our ideas about traditional models of beauty, such as Aphrodite. Above all, she boldly brings her personal experience into the text, weaving her reflections on female sensuality with contemporary theory. These linked essays are as much a performance as they are a discussion, breaking down the barriers between the personal and the academic, and the erotic and the intellectual. Frueh writes passionately and beautifully, and the result is a much-needed exploration of beauty myths and taboos.
Monster: Poems
by Robin MorganThe debut poetry collection from one of feminism&’s most passionate voices, with a new preface by the author Well before Robin Morgan was known as a feminist leader, literary magazines published her as a serious poet, and in 1979 she received a National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellowship in poetry. Monster, her first collection, originally published in 1972, contains work that will astonish, disorient, and move readers in powerful ways. But Monster is more than just a book; it has become a phenomenon. Written at a time of political turmoil during the birth of contemporary feminism, the title poem was adopted by women as the anthem of the women&’s movement; it was chanted at demonstrations and some of its lines became slogans. &“Arraignment&” stirred an international controversy over Ted Hughes&’s influence on Sylvia Plath&’s suicide—complete with lawsuits, the banning of this book, and the publication of underground, pirated feminist editions, all of which Morgan reveals in her new preface. From her well-wrought poems in classical forms to the searing energy and poignant lyricism of the longer, later ones, Morgan&’s work when it was first released spoke to women hungry for validation of their own reality—and the book sold thirty thousand copies in hardcover alone in its first six months, which was unheard of for poetry. Available now for the first time in years, Monster is an intense, propulsive journey deep into the heart of one of feminism&’s greatest heroes.
Monster: The Autobiography of an L.A. Gang Member
by Sanyika ShakurI have lived in South Central Los Angeles all my life. I grew up on Florence and Normandie. That is part of my territory. I was recruited into the Crips at the ripe old age of eleven. Today I am twenty-nine years old. I am a gang expert-period. There are no other gang experts except participants. Our lives, mores, customs, and philosophies remain as mysterious and untouched as those of any "uncivilized" tribe in Afrika. I have come full circle in my twenty-nine years on this planet, sixteen of those with the Crips. I have pushed people violently out of this existence and have fathered three children. I have felt completely free and have sat in total solitary confinement in San Quentin state prison. I have shot numerous people and have been shot seven times myself. I have been in gunfights in South Central and knife fights in Folsom state prison. Today, I languish at the bottom of one of the strictest maximum-security state prisons in this country. I propose to take my reader through the life and times of my own chilling involvement as a gang member with the Crips. I propose to open my mind as wide as possible to allow my readers the first ever glimpse at South Central from my side of the gun, street, fence, and wall. From my initial attraction and recruitment to my first shooting and my rise to Ghetto Star (ghetto celebrity) status, right up to the South Central rebellion and the truce between the warring factions-the Crips and Bloods. Although no longer aligned with gang or criminal activity, I still draw a great deal of support from this quarter. Come with me then, if you will, down a side street lined with stolen cars and youngsters armed with shotguns and .38 revolvers, lying in wait for the enemy, all members of a small gang. Then return with me five years later as the street is lined with luxury cars, dope dealers, and troops with AK-47 assault weapons, the gang now an army.
Monster: The Autobiography of an L.A. Gang Member
by Sanyika ShakurThe classic memoir of life as a Crip, written in solitary confinement: “A shockingly raw, frightening portrait of gang life in South Central Los Angeles.” —Michiko Kakutani, The New York TimesAfter pumping eight blasts from a sawed-off shotgun at a group of rival gang members, twelve-year-old Kody Scott was initiated into the L.A. gang the Crips. He quickly matured into one of the most formidable Crip combat soldiers, earning the name “Monster” for committing acts of brutal violence that repulsed even his fellow gang members.When the inevitable jail term confined him to a maximum-security cell, a complete political and personal transformation followed: from Monster to Sanyika Shakur, black nationalist, member of the New Afrikan Independence Movement, and crusader against the causes of gangsterism. In a work that has been compared to The Autobiography of Malcolm X and Eldridge Cleaver’s Soul on Ice, Shakur makes palpable the despair and decay of America’s inner cities and gives eloquent voice to one aspect of the black ghetto experience.
Monsters
by David D. GilmoreThe human mind needs monsters. In every culture and in every epoch in human history, from ancient Egypt to modern Hollywood, imaginary beings have haunted dreams and fantasies, provoking in young and old shivers of delight, thrills of terror, and endless fascination. All known folklores brim with visions of looming and ferocious monsters, often in the role as adversaries to great heroes. But while heroes have been closely studied by mythologists, monsters have been neglected, even though they are equally important as pan-human symbols and reveal similar insights into ways the mind works. In Monsters: Evil Beings, Mythical Beasts, and All Manner of Imaginary Terrors, anthropologist David D. Gilmore explores what human traits monsters represent and why they are so ubiquitous in people's imaginations and share so many features across different cultures.Using colorful and absorbing evidence from virtually all times and places, Monsters is the first attempt by an anthropologist to delve into the mysterious, frightful abyss of mythical beasts and to interpret their role in the psyche and in society. After many hair-raising descriptions of monstrous beings in art, folktales, fantasy, literature, and community ritual, including such avatars as Dracula and Frankenstein, Hollywood ghouls, and extraterrestrials, Gilmore identifies many common denominators and proposes some novel interpretations.Monsters, according to Gilmore, are always enormous, man-eating, gratuitously violent, aggressive, sexually sadistic, and superhuman in power, combining our worst nightmares and our most urgent fantasies. We both abhor and worship our monsters: they are our gods as well as our demons. Gilmore argues that the immortal monster of the mind is a complex creation embodying virtually all of the inner conflicts that make us human. Far from being something alien, nonhuman, and outside us, our monsters are our deepest selves.
Monsters Of Death Row
by Christopher Berry-Dee Anthony Gordon BrownFrom the cells of Death Row come the chilling, true-life accounts of the most heinous, cruel and depraved killers of modern times. Meet grisly killers such as Bill Joe Benefiel, the 'Superglue Monster', who glued his victims eyes and noses shut, causing them to suffocate. Or Willie Crain, the deviant fisherman, who put his victim into a lobster pot, where it was eaten by sea creatures.Many prisoners on ' the Row' have carried out serial murder, mass murder, spree killing and the desmemberment of bodies - both dead and alive. In these pages are to be found friends who have stabbed, hacked and ever filleted their victims. So meet the 'Dead Men and Women Walking' from the legion of the damned in the most terrifying true crime read ever.
Monsters You Should Know
by Emma Sancartier&“A humorous—and richly illustrated—book full of quirky monsters. SanCartier&’s creatures are somehow both cute and terrifying.&” —USA Today Meet the world&’s most unusual monsters in this darkly funny collection of creatures and cryptids from folkloric history. Illustrator Emma SanCartier captures the bizarre and hilarious elements of seventeen monsters from around the world in a light, tongue-in-cheek tone, from the Japanese dream-eater Baku and the Persian carnivorous unicorn Shadhavar to the Eastern European Shurale, a literal tickle monster. Illustrated in lush watercolor, Monsters You Should Know is a perfect primer for the many strange, frightening, and compelling things that go bump in the night. &“An important book on monsters you should know about, mostly because it turns out they&’re really cute.&” —Buzzfeed
Monsters and Revolutionaries: Colonial Family Romance and Métissage
by Françoise VergèsIn Monsters and Revolutionaries Françoise Vergès analyzes the complex relationship between the colonizer and colonized on the Indian Ocean island of Réunion. Through novels, iconography, and texts from various disciplines including law, medicine, and psychology, Vergès constructs a political and cultural history of the island's relations with France. Woven throughout is Vergès's own family history, which is intimately tied to the history of Réunion itself. Originally settled by sugar plantation owners and their Indian and African slaves following a seventeenth-century French colonial decree, Réunion abolished slavery in 1848. Because plantation owners continued to import workers from India, Africa, Asia, and Madagascar, the island was defined as a place based on mixed heritages, or métissage. Vergès reads the relationship between France and the residents of Réunion as a family romance: France is the seemingly protective mother, La Mère-Patrie, while the people of Réunion are seen and see themselves as France's children. Arguing that the central dynamic in the colonial family romance is that of debt and dependence, Verges explains how the republican ideals of the French Revolution and the Enlightenment are seen as gifts to Réunion that can never be repaid. This dynamic is complicated by the presence of métissage, a source of anxiety to the colonizer in its refutation of the "purity" of racial bloodlines. For Vergès, the island's history of slavery is the key to understanding métissage, the politics of assimilation, constructions of masculinity, and emancipatory discourses on Réunion.
Monsters and Saints: LatIndigenous Landscapes and Spectral Storytelling (Horror and Monstrosity Studies Series)
by Shantel Martinez and Kelly Medina-LópezContributions by Kathleen Alcalá, Sarah Amira de la Garza, Sarah De Los Santos Upton, Moises Gonzales, Luisa Fernanda Grijalva-Maza, Leandra Hinojosa Hernández, Spencer R. Herrera, Brenda Selena Lara, Susana Loza, Juan Pacheco Marcial, Amanda R. Martinez, Diana Isabel Martínez, Shantel Martinez, Diego Medina, Kelly Medina-López, Cathryn J. Merla-Watson, Arturo “Velaz” Muñoz, Eric Murillo, Saul Ramirez, Roxanna Ivonne Sanchez-Avila, ire’ne lara silva, Lizzeth Tecuatl Cuaxiloa, and Bianca Tonantzin Zamora Monsters and Saints: LatIndigenous Landscapes and Spectral Storytelling is a collection of stories, poetry, art, and essays divining the contemporary intersection of Latinx and Indigenous cultures from the American Southwest, Mexico, and Central and South America. To give voice to this complicated identity, this volume investigates how cultures of ghost storytelling foreground a sense of belonging and home in people from LatIndigenous landscapes. Monsters and Saints reflects intersectional and intergenerational understandings of lived experiences, bodies, and traumas as narrated through embodied hauntings. Contributions to this anthology represent a commitment to thoughtful inquiry into the ways storytelling assigns meaning through labels like monster, saint, and ghost, particularly as these unfold in the context of global migration. For many marginalized and displaced peoples, a sense of belonging is always haunted through historical exclusion from an original homespace. This exclusion further manifests as limited bodily autonomy. By locating the concept of “home” as beyond physical constructs, the volume argues that spectral stories and storytelling practices of LatIndigeneity (re)configure affective states and spaces of being, becoming, migrating, displacing, and belonging.
Monsters in America: Our Historical Obsession with the Hideous and the Haunting
by W. PooleMonsters arrived in 2011―and now they are back. Not only do they continue to live in our midst, but, as historian Scott Poole shows, these monsters are an important part of our past―a hideous obsession America cannot seem to escape. <p><p> Poole’s central argument in Monsters in America is that monster tales intertwine with America’s troubled history of racism, politics, class struggle, and gender inequality. The second edition of Monsters leads readers deeper into America’s tangled past to show how monsters continue to haunt contemporary American ideology. <p> By adding new discussions of the American West, Poole focuses intently on the Native American experience. He reveals how monster stories went west to Sand Creek and Wounded Knee, bringing the preoccupation with monsters into the twentieth century through the American Indian Movement. In his new preface and expanded conclusion, Poole’s tale connects to the present―illustrating the relationship between current social movements and their historical antecedents. This proven textbook also studies the social location of contemporary horror films, exploring, for example, how Get Out emerged from the context of the Black Lives Matter movement. Finally, in the new section "American Carnage," Poole challenges readers to assess what their own monster tales might be and how our sordid past horrors express themselves in our present cultural anxieties. <p> By the end of the book, Poole cautions that America’s monsters aren’t going away anytime soon. If specters of the past still haunt our present, they may yet invade our future. Monsters are here to stay.
Monsters of the Gévaudan: The Making of a Beast
by Jay M. SmithIn a brilliant, original rendition, Monsters of the Gévaudan revisits a spellbinding French tale that has captivated imaginations for over two hundred years, and offers the definitive explanation of the strange events that underlie this timeless story. In 1764 a peasant girl was killed and partially eaten while tending a flock of sheep. Eventually, over a hundred victims fell prey to a mysterious creature, or creatures, whose cunning and deadly efficiency terrorized the region and mesmerized Europe. The fearsome aggressor quickly took on mythic status, and the beast of the Gévaudan passed into French folklore. What species was this killer, why did it decapitate so many of its victims, and why did it prefer the flesh of women and children? Why did contemporaries assume that the beast was anything but a wolf, or a pack of wolves, as authorities eventually claimed, and why is the tale so often ignored in histories of the ancien régime? Smith finds the answer to these last two questions in an accident of timing. The beast was bound to be perceived as strange and anomalous because its ravages coincided with the emergence of modernity itself. Expertly situated within the social, intellectual, cultural, and political currents of French life in the 1760s, Monsters of the Gévaudan will engage a wide range of readers with both its recasting of the beast narrative and its compelling insights into the allure of the monstrous in historical memory.
Monsters of the Week: The Complete Critical Companion to The X-Files
by Zack Handlen Emily Todd VanDerWerffThe complete critical companion to The X-Files, covering every episode and both films and featuring interviews with screenwriters and stars.In Monsters of the Week: The Complete Critical Companion to The X-Files, TV critics Zack Handlen and Emily Todd VanDerWerff look back at exactly what made the long-running cult series so groundbreaking. Packed with insightful reviews of every episode—including the tenth and eleventh seasons and both major motion pictures—Monsters of the Week leaves no mystery unsolved and no monster unexplained. This crucial collection includes a foreword by series creator Chris Carter as well as exclusive interviews with some of show’s stars and screenwriters, including Carter, Vince Gilligan, Mitch Pileggi, James Wong, Robert Patrick, Darin Morgan, and more. Monsters of the Week is the definitive guide to The X-Files—whether you’re a lifelong viewer or a new fan uncovering the conspiracy for the first time. “This rich critical companion provides what evert X-Files fan deserves.” —Entertainment Weekly “The X-Files is my favorite show and Zack and Emily are my favorite reviewers of my favorite show and this is my favorite quote about it.” —Kumail Nanjiani, writer and star of The Big Sick; creator of The X-Files Files podcast“If Mulder and Scully had access to this terrific book, they would’ve solved every mystery of The X-Files in a single season. . . . The truth is in here!” —Damon Lindelof, co-creator of Lost and The Leftovers
Monsters vs. Patriarchy: Toxic Imagination in Global Horror Cinema (Global Media and Race)
by Patricia Saldarriaga Emy ManiniAcross the globe, the violent effects of patriarchy are manifest. Women, trans people, gender-nonconforming people, and the racialized Other are regularly subjected to physical danger, beginning with the denial of vitally important health care, and, in its most horrific form, rape, trafficking, and murder. Monsters vs. Patriarchy links these real-world horrors to the monstrification and dehumanization of people as expressed in contemporary global cinema. This monstrification has been achieved through a toxic imagination attributed to women, a trait that historically referred to the power of women to negatively affect others, including their own children in the womb, with only the use of their imagination. This process reflects the misogynist and racist world in which we live, where female bodies, people of color, and alternative identities represent a threat to patriarchal power. Monsters vs. Patriarchy examines female monstrosity as it appears in horror films from around the world and considers specific political, scientific, and historical contexts to better understand how we construct and reconstruct monstrosity, using an intersectional approach to examine the imposition of gender and racial hierarchies that support national power structures. The authors contend that monstrous female cinematic subjects, including ghosts, witches, cannibals, and posthuman beings, are becoming empowered, using the tools of their monstrification to smash the colonial, white supremacist, and misogynist structures that created them.
Monsters, Catastrophes and the Anthropocene: A Postcolonial Critique (Routledge Environmental Humanities)
by Gaia GiulianiMonsters, Catastrophes and the Anthropocene: A Postcolonial Critique explores European and Western imaginaries of natural disaster, mass migration and terrorism through a postcolonial inquiry into modern conceptions of monstrosity and catastrophe. This book uses established icons of popular visual culture in sci-fi, doomsday and horror films and TV series, as well as in images reproduced by the news media to help trace the genealogy of modern fears to ontologies and logics of the Anthropocene. By logics of the Anthropocene, the book refers to a set of principles based on ontologies of exploitation, extermination and natural resource exhaustion processes determining who is worthy of benefiting from value extraction and being saved from the catastrophe and who is expendable. Fears for the loss of isolation from the unworthy and the expendable are investigated here as originating anxieties against migrants’ invasions, terrorist attacks and planetary catastrophes, in a thread that weaves together re-emerging ‘past nightmares’ and future visions. This book will be of great interest to students and academics of the Environmental Humanities, Human and Cultural Geography, Political Philosophy, Psychosocial Studies, Postcolonial Studies and Critical Race and Whiteness Studies, Gender Studies and Postcolonial Feminist Studies, Cultural Studies, Sociology, Cultural Anthropology, Cinema Studies and Visual Studies.
Monsters: 100 Weird Creatures from Around the World
by Sarah BanvilleThe perfect book for adults and children to share, MONSTERS is set to become a bone-chilling classic that will lurk under every bed in 2021!Ever wondered what terrorised the Scape Ore swamp in 1980s South Carolina? Or who visits the naughty children in Northern Europe to punish them on Christmas Eve? Or how bloated undead feeders got upgraded to a shape-shifting castle-dwelling Count?From well-known and well-feared monsters like Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster, to the lesser-known, but just as weird and wonderful Japanese Sea Serpent and Chinese Hopping Vampires, this terrific book is the must-have guide to monsters from all over the world. Each monster is brought to life in a bright and bold way by the fantastically stylish illustrator of the bestselling Stories for Boys Who Dare to Be Different series, Quinton Winter. These illustrations feature alongside the fascinating folklore and history which surrounds the monsters, researched by author and monster enthusiast, Sarah Banville. Get ready to dive into MONSTERS, but beware of what you might find there ...
Monstrous Imaginaries: The Legacy of Romanticism in Comics
by Maaheen AhmedMonsters seem inevitably linked to humans and not always as mere opposites. Maaheen Ahmed examines good monsters in comics to show how Romantic themes from the eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries persist in today’s popular culture. Comics monsters, questioning the distinction between human and monster, self and other, are valuable conduits of Romantic inclinations. Engaging with Romanticism and the many monsters created by Romantic writers and artists such as Mary Shelley, Victor Hugo, and Goya, Ahmed maps the heritage, functions, and effects of monsters in contemporary comics and graphic novels. She highlights the persistence of recurrent Romantic features through monstrous protagonists in English- and French-language comics and draws out their implications. Aspects covered include the dark Romantic predilection for ruins and the sordid, the solitary protagonist and his quest, nostalgia, the prominence of the spectacle as well as excessive emotions, and above all, the monster’s ambiguity and rebelliousness. Ahmed highlights each Romantic theme through close readings of well-known but often overlooked comics, including Enki Bilal's Monstre tetralogy, Jim O'Barr's The Crow, and Emil Ferris’s My Favorite Thing Is Monsters, as well as the iconic comics series Alan Moore's Swamp Thing and Mike Mignola's Hellboy. In blurring the otherness of the monster, these protagonists retain the exaggeration and uncontrollability of all monsters while incorporating Romantic characteristics.