Black Female Vampires in African American Women’s Novels, 1977–2011


Book Description

This book critically situates the figure of the black female vampire in several fields of study including literary studies, cultural studies, gender studies, and critical race studies. Black female vampires continue to appear as important literary devices and revealing indicators of cultural attitudes and trends about African American women’s bodies. This book examines five novels written by four African American women writers to investigate what it means to represent African American womanhood through the lens of vampirism, interrogate how these representations connect to or stem from historical representations of African American women, and explore how representations of black female vampires in African American women’s literature simultaneously negate, reinforce, or dismantle stereotypes of African American women.




Black Female Vampires in African American Women's Novels, 1977-2011


Book Description

This book critically situates the figure of the black female vampire within literary studies, cultural studies, gender studies, and critical race studies. It invites readers to take a closer look at the black female vampire figure and how that figure shapes and is shaped by cultural narratives about African American womanhood.







Vampire Literature


Book Description

Vampire Literature: An Anthology is the first anthology of vampire literature designed specifically for use in the higher education classroom. As Nina Auerbach argues in her introduction to Our Vampires, Ourselves, vampires are “personifications of their age”; with coverage from the early nineteenth century to the twenty-first, Vampire Literature: An Anthology brings together a wide range of texts from many eras—and bring together as well work by American, British, Irish, and Caribbean writers. The focus is on shorter prose texts, primarily short stories and novellas (Polidori’s The Vampyre and LeFanu’s Carmilla are included in full); in a few cases, longer works are excerpted. Included as well are a range of illustrations and other visual materials. With an informative general introduction, headnotes to each selection, and explanatory footnotes throughout, Vampire Literature: An Anthology is ideally suited for use in the undergraduate classroom.




Speculative Film and Moving Images by Or about Black Women and Girls


Book Description

This book examines twentieth and twenty-first century speculative fiction films that represent women and girls of African descent Jeffrey offers insights about positive developments while calling attention to questionable trends in recent movie-making.




The Encyclopedia of Contemporary American Fiction, 2 Volumes


Book Description

Fresh perspectives and eye-opening discussions of contemporary American fiction In The Encyclopedia of Contemporary American Fiction: 1980-2020, a team of distinguished scholars delivers a focused and in-depth collection of essays on some of the most significant and influential authors and literary subjects of the last four decades. Cutting-edge entries from established and new voices discuss subjects as varied as multiculturalism, contemporary regionalisms, realism after poststructuralism, indigenous narratives, globalism, and big data in the context of American fiction from the last 40 years. The Encyclopedia provides an overview of American fiction at the turn of the millennium as well as a vision of what may come. It perfectly balances analysis, summary, and critique for an illuminating treatment of the subject matter. This collection also includes: An exciting mix of established and emerging contributors from around the world discussing central and cutting-edge topics in American fiction studies Focused, critical explorations of authors and subjects of critical importance to American fiction Topics that reflect the energies and tendencies of contemporary American fiction from the forty years between 1980 and 2020 The Encyclopedia of Contemporary American Fiction: 1980-2020 is a must-have resource for undergraduate and graduate students of American literature, English, creative writing, and fiction studies. It will also earn a place in the libraries of scholars seeking an authoritative array of contributions on both established and newer authors of contemporary fiction.




Queering the Vampire Narrative


Book Description

Queering the Vampire Narrative offers classroom-ready original essays that continue our explorations of vampires as representations of the cultural Other, which builds on the work of our previous texts. The editors argue, ultimately, the vampire is a queer icon, infinitely blurring the boundaries of identity and cultural norms and queering even the most seemingly stable notions, such as life, death, humanity, and monstrosity. The Vampire is the undead monarch of subtextual articulations of Otherness, especially queer behaviors and desires, offering explorations of the AIDS epidemic, the destabilization of ideas of fixed and stable sexuality, the search for community and chosen family, and the issues of individual and generational trauma. In current fictions, vampires are coming out of the coffin and the closet, identifying as openly queer and often created by queer writers, artists, and directors and bringing the subtext to the surface of the narrative. This volume seeks to create a dialogue about the impact and importance of the vampire on queer identity and queer theory and to answer the questions of why the vampire is such a compelling queer icon and what visions of vampires articulate about our ideas surrounding issues of sexuality, sexual orientation, sexual behaviors, and desires.




The Bloomsbury Handbook to Octavia E. Butler


Book Description

Octavia E. Butler is widely recognized today as one of the most important figures in contemporary science fiction. Bringing together leading and emerging scholars and covering Butler's complete works from the bestselling novel Kindred, to her short stories and major novel sequences Patternmaster, Xenogenesis and The Parables, this is the most comprehensive Companion to Butler scholarship available today. The Bloomsbury Handbook to Octavia E. Butler covers the full range of contemporary scholarly themes and approaches to the author's work, including: · Cyborgs and the posthuman · Race and African American history · Afrofuturism · Gender and sexuality · New perspectives from Religious Studies, the Environmental Humanities and Disability Studies · New discoveries from the Butler archives at the Huntington Library The book includes a comprehensive bibliography of works by Butler and secondary scholarship on her work as well as an afterword by the novelist Tananarive Due.




Octavia E. Butler


Book Description

Slow to rise in the literary world, Octavia Estelle Butler cultivated musings on earth's future, reaching massive critical acclaim in the process. This companion will complement book club discussions and classroom lessons for the closest possible readings of Butler's science fiction and her texts on racism and pollution. A maven of speculative fiction so prescient that it hovers between tocsin and prophecy, Butler survives through her print stories, essays, novels and musings on individualism and compromise. This book guides the reader on a variety of Butler pieces, from her most obscure titles to her historical entries and pieces that speculate upon science, metaphysics, linguistics, psychology, writing and religion. The text serves as a guide through the depths of Octavia Butler's works and reinforces the reasons for which her name so often appears on reading lists for higher learning.




Historical Dictionary of Horror Literature


Book Description

Stories of vampires, werewolves, zombies, witches, goblins, mummies, and other supernatural creatures have existed for time immemorial, and scary stories are among the earliest types of fiction ever recorded. Historical Dictionary of Horror Literature is an invaluable aid in studying horror literature, including influential authors, texts, terms, subgenres, and literary movements. This book contains a chronology, an introduction, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has more than 400 cross-referenced entries covering authors, subgenres, tropes, awards, organizations, and important terms related to horror. Historical Dictionary of Horror Literature is an excellent resource for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about horror literature.