Author : Julie B. Wiest
Publisher : CRC Press
Page : 225 pages
File Size : 40,64 MB
Release : 2011-06-06
Category : Law
ISBN : 1439851557
Serial murderers generate an abundance of public interest, media coverage, and law enforcement attention, yet after decades of studies, serial murder researchers have been unable to answer the most important question: Why? Providing a unique and comprehensive exploration, Creating Cultural Monsters: Serial Murder in America explains connections bet
Author : Joseph P. Laycock
Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield
Page : 289 pages
File Size : 19,28 MB
Release : 2021-02-15
Category : Religion
ISBN : 1793640254
Religion, Culture, and the Monstrous: Of Gods and Monsters explores the intersection of the emerging field of “monster theory” within religious studies. With case studies from ancient Mesopotamia to contemporary valleys of the Himalayas to ghost tours in Savannah, Georgia, the volume examines the variegated nature of the monstrous as well as the cultural functions of monsters in shaping how we see the world and ourselves. In this, the authors constructively assess the state of the two fields of monster theory and religious studies, and propose new directions in how these fields can inform each other. The case studies included illuminate the ways in which monsters reinforce the categories through which a given culture sees the world. At the same time, the volume points to how monsters appear to question, disrupt, or challenge those categories, creating an ‘unsettling’ or surplus of meaning.
Author : Alexa Wright
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
Page : 124 pages
File Size : 41,33 MB
Release : 2013-06-30
Category : Art
ISBN : 0857733354
From the 'Monster of Ravenna' to the 'Elephant Man', Myra Hindley and Ted Bundy, the visualisation of 'real', human monsters has always played a part in how society sees itself. But what is the function of a monster? Why do we need to embody and represent what is monstrous? This book investigates the appearance of the human monster in Western culture, both historically and in our contemporary society. It argues that images of real (rather than fictional) human monsters help us both to identify and to interrogate what constitutes normality; we construct what is acceptable in humanity by depicting what is not quite acceptable. By exploring theories and examples of abnormality, freakishness, madness, otherness and identification, Alexa Wright demonstrates how monstrosity and the monster are social and cultural constructs. However, it soon becomes clear that the social function of the monster – however altered a form it takes – remains constant; it is societal self-defence allowing us to keep perceived monstrosity at a distance. Through engaging with the work of Michel Foucault, Julia Kristeva and Canguilhem (to name but a few) Wright scrutinises and critiques the history of a mode of thinking. She reassesses and explodes conventional concepts of identity, obscuring the boundaries between what is 'normal' and what is not.
Author : Jeffrey Jerome Cohen
Publisher : U of Minnesota Press
Page : 331 pages
File Size : 37,92 MB
Release : 1996-11-15
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 1452900558
The contributors to Monster Theory consider beasts, demons, freaks and fiends as symbolic expressions of cultural unease that pervade a society and shape its collective behavior. Through a historical sampling of monsters, these essays argue that our fascination for the monstrous testifies to our continued desire to explore difference and prohibition.
Author : Lisa Wenger Bro
Publisher :
Page : 412 pages
File Size : 46,80 MB
Release : 2018-07
Category : Monsters
ISBN : 9781527510890
Monsters are a part of every society, and ours is no exception. They are deeply embedded in our history, our mythos, and our culture. However, treating them as simply a facet of children's stories or escapist entertainment belittles their importance. When examined closely, we see that monsters have always represented the things we fear: that which is different, which we can't understand, which is dangerous, which is Other. But in many ways, monsters also represent our growing awareness of ourselves and our changing place in a continually shrinking world. Contemporary portrayals of the monstrous often have less to do with what we fear in others than with what we fear about ourselves, what we fear we might be capable of. The nineteen essays in this volume explore the place and function of the monstrous in a variety of media stories and novels like Baum's Oz books or Gibson's Neuromancer; television series and feature films like The Walking Dead or Edward Scissorhands; and myths and legends like Beowulf and The Loch Ness Monster in order to provide a closer understanding of not just who we are and who we have been, but also who we believe we can be for better or worse.
Author : Dr Leviak B Kelly D DIV
Publisher :
Page : 266 pages
File Size : 19,83 MB
Release : 2015-11-02
Category :
ISBN : 9780692571309
When people think of monsters and creatures of the night, they think supernatural beasts and evil wickedness or they think of television and literary creatures that range from hero through villain. They rarely ever understand the origins of these creatures past the cursory legends, such as Dracula as the historical character of Vlad Tepes, Vlad the Impaler. This book moves beyond this and delves deep into the very core of the legends, It speaks to the very "atoms", "molecules", and delves into the very quanta of the origins. It deals with the actual rise of these creatures in what the general public would view new and novel. In truth, though, it is neither new or novel. The book, through reference to scientific papers, journeys to the "center of the earth" if you will and into the molten core of the legends of these truly sad characters. For as the heat of molten core of the earth melts away flesh, so also the information in this book melts away the error and superstitions. Using only educated and naturalistic thinking, the authors show that supernatural thought processes have shaped theologies of religion and cultural mythologies that were created from viruses and their symptoms. They created monsters. However, this supernatural or religious thinking not only created monsters from their ignorance of the natural world but created it from suffering people. A suffering that was increased because of supernal ideologies that themselves may have been created by a virus. Come with the authors into the past and view the minority report of the origins of monsters, demons, and venerated diseases. See the suffering that the infected suffered without a naturalistic mindset as the ill were cascaded with further suffering by theologies that shaped our global culture for over 6000 years of punishment on the innocent. Enter the microcosmic world of viruses and bacteria that have created, yes created, religious theologies that influenced our cultures with a history of pain for the innocent and guilty alike. When you do this, you will be shocked to find how faith has been injured by beliefs that strive to punish rather than help the suffering. Look at the genuine "Monsters Among Us" if you dare to view the truth.
Author : Jeffrey Jerome Cohen
Publisher : U of Minnesota Press
Page : 315 pages
File Size : 13,3 MB
Release : 1996
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 9780816628544
The contributors to Monster Theory consider beasts, demons, freaks and fiends as symbolic expressions of cultural unease that pervade a society and shape its collective behavior. Through a historical sampling of monsters, these essays argue that our fascination for the monstrous testifies to our continued desire to explore difference and prohibition.
Author : J. Kevin Cobb
Publisher : Hillcrest Publishing Group
Page : 154 pages
File Size : 47,88 MB
Release : 2011-05-16
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 1936401452
While defining problems that undermine an organization is usually easy, a far greater challenge is convincing leaders and managers to stop making those problems even worse. Hence the title, "Quit Feeding the Monsters." The resolutions and applications outlined in this book may seem radical. In fact, Cobb's strategies are based on common sense, established human behavior and what were once considered tried and true principles, too long forgotten. In one personal anecdote after another, gained from hundreds of experiences in the workplace, Cobb amply demonstrates that what is considered conservative and safe is in fact often a sure road to ruin and defeat. In engaging and straightforward language, "Quit Feeding the Monsters" contains the wisdom and tools that really work. With this book, you can learn how to stop nourishing the monsters plaguing your company once and for all.
Author : Annalee Newitz
Publisher : Duke University Press
Page : 233 pages
File Size : 44,98 MB
Release : 2006-07-17
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 0822387859
In Pretend We’re Dead, Annalee Newitz argues that the slimy zombies and gore-soaked murderers who have stormed through American film and literature over the past century embody the violent contradictions of capitalism. Ravaged by overwork, alienated by corporate conformity, and mutilated by the unfettered lust for profit, fictional monsters act out the problems with an economic system that seems designed to eat people whole. Newitz looks at representations of serial killers, mad doctors, the undead, cyborgs, and unfortunates mutated by their involvement with the mass media industry. Whether considering the serial killer who turns murder into a kind of labor by mass producing dead bodies, or the hack writers and bloodthirsty actresses trapped inside Hollywood’s profit-mad storytelling machine, she reveals that each creature has its own tale to tell about how a freewheeling market economy turns human beings into monstrosities. Newitz tracks the monsters spawned by capitalism through b movies, Hollywood blockbusters, pulp fiction, and American literary classics, looking at their manifestations in works such as Norman Mailer’s “true life novel” The Executioner’s Song; the short stories of Isaac Asimov and H. P. Lovecraft; the cyberpunk novels of William Gibson and Marge Piercy; true-crime books about the serial killers Ted Bundy and Jeffrey Dahmer; and movies including Modern Times (1936), Donovan’s Brain (1953), Night of the Living Dead (1968), RoboCop (1987), The Silence of the Lambs (1991), and Artificial Intelligence: AI (2001). Newitz shows that as literature and film tell it, the story of American capitalism since the late nineteenth century is a tale of body-mangling, soul-crushing horror.
Author :
Publisher : BRILL
Page : 236 pages
File Size : 14,21 MB
Release : 2007-01-01
Category : History
ISBN : 9401204810
Emerging from depths comes a series of papers dealing with one of the most significant creations that reflects on and critiques human existence. Both a warning and a demonstration, the monster as myth and metaphor provides an articulation of human imagination that toys with the permissible and impermissible. Monsters from zombies to cuddly cartoon characters, emerging from sewers, from pages of literature, propaganda posters, movies and heavy metal, all are covered in this challenging, scholarly collection. This volume the third in the series presents a marvellous collection of studies on the metaphor of the monster in literature, cinema, music, culture, philosophy, history and politics. Both historical reflection and concerns of our time are addressed with clarity and written in an accessible manner providing appeal for the scholar and lay reader alike. This eclectic collection will be of interest to academics and students working in a range of disciplines, such as cultural studies, film studies, political theory, philosophy and literature studies.
