Monstrous Imaginaries

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Publisher : Univ. Press of Mississippi
ISBN 13 : 1496825284
Total Pages : 249 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (968 download)

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Book Synopsis Monstrous Imaginaries by : Maaheen Ahmed

Download or read book Monstrous Imaginaries written by Maaheen Ahmed and published by Univ. Press of Mississippi. This book was released on 2019-11-29 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Monsters 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.

Comic Drunks, Crazy Cults, and Lovable Monsters

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Publisher : Syracuse University Press
ISBN 13 : 081565569X
Total Pages : 378 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (156 download)

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Book Synopsis Comic Drunks, Crazy Cults, and Lovable Monsters by : David Scott Diffrient

Download or read book Comic Drunks, Crazy Cults, and Lovable Monsters written by David Scott Diffrient and published by Syracuse University Press. This book was released on 2022-12-01 with total page 378 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Contradictory to its core, the sitcom—an ostensibly conservative, tranquilizing genre—has a long track record in the United States of tackling controversial subjects with a fearlessness not often found in other types of programming. But the sitcom also conceals as much as it reveals, masking the rationale for socially deviant or deleterious behavior behind figures of ridicule whose motives are rarely disclosed fully over the course of a thirty-minute episode. Examining a broad range of network and cable TV shows across the history of the medium, from classic, working-class comedies such as The Honeymooners, All in the Family, and Roseanne to several contemporary cult series, animated programs, and online hits that have yet to attract much scholarly attention, this book explores the ways in which social imaginaries related to “bad behavior” have been humorously exploited over the years. The repeated appearance of socially wayward figures on the small screen—from raging alcoholics to brainwashed cult members to actual monsters who are merely exaggerated versions of our own inner demons—has the dual effect of reducing complex individuals to recognizable “types” while neutralizing the presumed threats that they pose. Such representations not only provide strangely comforting reminders that “badness” is a cultural construct, but also prompt audiences to reflect on their own unspoken proclivities for antisocial behavior, if only in passing.

Perfect Copies

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Publisher : Rutgers University Press
ISBN 13 : 1978826540
Total Pages : 161 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (788 download)

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Book Synopsis Perfect Copies by : Shiamin Kwa

Download or read book Perfect Copies written by Shiamin Kwa and published by Rutgers University Press. This book was released on 2023-01-13 with total page 161 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Analyzing the way that recent works of graphic narrative use the comics form to engage with the “problem” of reproduction, Shiamin Kwa’s Perfect Copies reminds us that the mode of production and the manner in which we perceive comics are often quite similar to the stories they tell. Perfect Copies considers the dual notions of reproduction, mechanical as well as biological, and explores how comics are works of reproduction that embed questions about the nature of reproduction itself. Through close readings of the comics My Favorite Thing Is Monsters by Emil Ferris, The Black Project by Gareth Brookes, The Generous Bosom series by Conor Stechschulte, Sabrina by Nick Drnaso, and Panther by Brecht Evens, Perfect Copies shows how these comics makers push the limits of different ideas of “reproduction” in strikingly different ways. Kwa suggests that reading and thinking about books like these, that push us to engage with these complicated questions, teaches us how to become better readers.

Subjects Barbarian, Monstrous, and Wild

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Publisher : BRILL
ISBN 13 : 9004352015
Total Pages : 269 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (43 download)

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Book Synopsis Subjects Barbarian, Monstrous, and Wild by : Maria Boletsi

Download or read book Subjects Barbarian, Monstrous, and Wild written by Maria Boletsi and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2017-11-20 with total page 269 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In a contemporary political climate where barbarians, monsters, and savages have become ubiquitous figures of otherness, Subjects Barbarian, Monstrous, and Wild gathers essays which explore both the oppressive, dispossessing functions and subversive potentials of these figures in and through art and literature.

Player vs. Monster

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Publisher : MIT Press
ISBN 13 : 0262373238
Total Pages : 235 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (623 download)

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Book Synopsis Player vs. Monster by : Jaroslav Svelch

Download or read book Player vs. Monster written by Jaroslav Svelch and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2023-02-07 with total page 235 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A study of the gruesome game characters we love to beat—and what they tell us about ourselves. Since the early days of video games, monsters have played pivotal roles as dangers to be avoided, level bosses to be defeated, or targets to be destroyed for extra points. But why is the figure of the monster so important in gaming, and how have video games come to shape our culture’s conceptions of monstrosity? To answer these questions, Player vs. Monster explores the past half-century of monsters in games, from the dragons of early tabletop role-playing games and the pixelated aliens of Space Invaders to the malformed mutants of The Last of Us and the bizarre beasts of Bloodborne, and reveals the common threads among them. Covering examples from aliens to zombies, Jaroslav Švelch explores the art of monster design and traces its influences from mythology, visual arts, popular culture, and tabletop role-playing games. At the same time, he shows that video games follow the Cold War–era notion of clearly defined, calculable enemies, portraying monsters as figures that are irredeemably evil yet invariably vulnerable to defeat. He explains the appeal of such simplistic video game monsters, but also explores how the medium could evolve to present more nuanced depictions of monstrosity.

The Metaphor of the Monster

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Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN 13 : 1501364359
Total Pages : 256 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (13 download)

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Book Synopsis The Metaphor of the Monster by : Keith Moser

Download or read book The Metaphor of the Monster written by Keith Moser and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2020-10-15 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Metaphor of the Monster offers fresh perspectives and a variety of disciplinary approaches to the ever-broadening field of monster studies. The eclectic group of contributors to this volume represents areas of study not generally considered under the purview of monster studies, including world literature, classical studies, philosophy, ecocriticism, animal ethics, and gender studies. Combining historical overviews with contemporary and global outlooks, this volume recontextualizes the monstrous entities that have always haunted the human imagination in the age of the Anthropocene. It also invites reflection on new forms of monstrosity in an era epitomized by an unprecedented deluge of (mis)information. Uniting researchers from varied academic backgrounds in a common effort to challenge the monstrous labels that have historically been imposed upon "the Other," this book endeavors above all to bring the monster out of the shadows and into the light of moral consideration.

Generation Z

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Publisher : Springer
ISBN 13 : 981287934X
Total Pages : 187 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (128 download)

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Book Synopsis Generation Z by : Victoria Carrington

Download or read book Generation Z written by Victoria Carrington and published by Springer. This book was released on 2015-12-17 with total page 187 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book argues that the mythic figure of the zombie, so prevalent and powerful in contemporary culture, provides the opportunity to explore certain social models – such as ‘childhood’ and ‘school’, ‘class’ and ‘family’ – that so deeply underpin educational policy and practice as to be rendered invisible. It brings together authors from a range of disciplines to use contemporary zombie typologies – slave, undead, contagion – to examine the responsiveness of everyday practices of schooling such as literacy, curriculum and pedagogy to the new contexts in which children and young people develop their identities, attitudes to learning, and engage with the many publics that make up their everyday worlds.

Hitler's Monsters

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Publisher : Yale University Press
ISBN 13 : 0300190379
Total Pages : 411 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (1 download)

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Book Synopsis Hitler's Monsters by : Eric Kurlander

Download or read book Hitler's Monsters written by Eric Kurlander and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2017-06-06 with total page 411 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A dense and scholarly book about . . . the relationship between the Nazi party and the occult . . . reveals stranger-than-fiction truths on every page.”—Daily Telegraph The Nazi fascination with the occult is legendary, yet today it is often dismissed as Himmler’s personal obsession or wildly overstated for its novelty. Preposterous though it was, however, supernatural thinking was inextricable from the Nazi project. The regime enlisted astrology and the paranormal, paganism, Indo-Aryan mythology, witchcraft, miracle weapons, and the lost kingdom of Atlantis in reimagining German politics and society and recasting German science and religion. In this eye-opening history, Eric Kurlander reveals how the Third Reich’s relationship to the supernatural was far from straightforward. Even as popular occultism and superstition were intermittently rooted out, suppressed, and outlawed, the Nazis drew upon a wide variety of occult practices and esoteric sciences to gain power, shape propaganda and policy, and pursue their dreams of racial utopia and empire. “[Kurlander] shows how swiftly irrational ideas can take hold, even in an age before social media.”—The Washington Post “Deeply researched, convincingly authenticated, this extraordinary study of the magical and supernatural at the highest levels of Nazi Germany will astonish.”—The Spectator “A trustworthy [book] on an extraordinary subject.”—The Times “A fascinating look at a little-understood aspect of fascism.”—Kirkus Reviews “Kurlander provides a careful, clear-headed, and exhaustive examination of a subject so lurid that it has probably scared away some of the serious research it merits.”—National Review

Monsters

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Publisher : University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN 13 : 0812203224
Total Pages : 226 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (122 download)

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Book Synopsis Monsters by : David D. Gilmore

Download or read book Monsters written by David D. Gilmore and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2012-05-26 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The 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.

North American Monsters

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Publisher : University Press of Colorado
ISBN 13 : 1646421604
Total Pages : 381 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (464 download)

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Book Synopsis North American Monsters by : David J. Puglia

Download or read book North American Monsters written by David J. Puglia and published by University Press of Colorado. This book was released on 2022-03-15 with total page 381 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mining a mountain of folklore publications, North American Monsters unearths decades of notable monster research. Nineteen folkloristic case studies from the last half-century examine legendary monsters in their native habitats, focusing on ostensibly living creatures bound to specific geographic locales. A diverse cast of scholars contemplate these alluring creatures, feared and beloved by the communities that host them—the Jersey Devil gliding over the Pine Barrens, Lieby wriggling through Lake Lieberman, Char-Man stalking the Ojai Valley, and many, many more. Embracing local stories, beliefs, and traditions while neither promoting nor debunking, North American Monsters aspires to revive scholarly interest in local legendary monsters and creatures and to encourage folkloristic monster legend sleuthing.

Living with Monsters? Social Implications of Algorithmic Phenomena, Hybrid Agency, and the Performativity of Technology

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Publisher : Springer
ISBN 13 : 3030040917
Total Pages : 199 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (3 download)

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Book Synopsis Living with Monsters? Social Implications of Algorithmic Phenomena, Hybrid Agency, and the Performativity of Technology by : Ulrike Schultze

Download or read book Living with Monsters? Social Implications of Algorithmic Phenomena, Hybrid Agency, and the Performativity of Technology written by Ulrike Schultze and published by Springer. This book was released on 2018-11-29 with total page 199 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the IFIP WG 8.2 Working Conference on Information Systems and Organizations, IS&O 2018, held in San Francisco, CA, USA, in December 2018. The 11 revised full papers presented together with one short paper and 2 keynote papers were carefully reviewed and selected from 47 submissions. The papers are organized in the following topical sections: setting the stage; social implications of algorithmic phenomena; hybrid agency and the performativity of technology; and living with monsters.

Maxwell Moose's Mountain Monster

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Publisher : Triangle Interactive, Inc.
ISBN 13 : 1684440556
Total Pages : 32 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (844 download)

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Book Synopsis Maxwell Moose's Mountain Monster by : Barbara deRubertis

Download or read book Maxwell Moose's Mountain Monster written by Barbara deRubertis and published by Triangle Interactive, Inc. . This book was released on 2017-12-13 with total page 32 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Read Along or Enhanced eBook: Maxwell Moose loves camping out and making s’mores and telling spooky stories. But what if Maxwell’s imaginary Mountain Monster stories aren’t as imaginary as he thought?

Monsters in Performance

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Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1000593347
Total Pages : 232 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (5 download)

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Book Synopsis Monsters in Performance by : Michael Chemers

Download or read book Monsters in Performance written by Michael Chemers and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2022-06-01 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Monsters in Performance boasts an impressive range of contemporary essays that delve into topical themes such as race, gender, and disability, to explore what constitutes monstrosity within the performing arts. These fascinating essays from leading and emerging scholars explore representation in performance, specifically concerning themselves with attempts at social disqualification of "undesirables." Throughout, the writers employ the concept of "monstrosity" to describe the cultural processes by which certain identities or bodies are configured to be threateningly deviant. The editors take a range of previously isolated critical inquiries – including bioethics, critical race studies, queer studies, and televisual studies - and merge them to create an accessible and dynamic platform which unifies these ranges of representations. The global scope and interdisciplinary nature of Monsters in Performance renders it an essential book for Theatre and Performance students of all levels as well as scholars; it will also be an enlightening text for those interested in monstrosity and Cultural Studies more broadly.

The Monster Leviathan

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Publisher : MIT Press
ISBN 13 : 0262546337
Total Pages : 461 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (625 download)

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Book Synopsis The Monster Leviathan by : Aaron Betsky

Download or read book The Monster Leviathan written by Aaron Betsky and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2024-01-09 with total page 461 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Visionary proposals for a mythic and strange architecture—or anarchitecture—through which we can imagine other and better worlds. Lurking under the surface of our modern world lies an unseen architecture—or anarchitecture. It is a possible architecture, an analogous architecture, an architecture of anarchy, which haunts in the form of monsters that are humans and machines and cities all at once; or takes the form of explosions, veils, queer, playful spaces, or visions from artwork and video games. In The Monster Leviathan, Aaron Betsky traces anarchitecture through texts, design, and art of the twentieth and early twenty-first century, and suggests that these ephemeral evocations are concrete proposals in and of themselves. Neither working models nor suggestions for new forms, they are scenes just believable enough to convince us they exist, or just fantastical enough to open our eyes. The Monster Leviathan gives students and lovers of architecture, as well as those hoping to construct a better, more sustainable, and socially just future, a set of tools through which they can imagine that such other worlds are possible. As Betsky eloquently articulates, anarchitecture already exists and does not exist at all. It is the myth of building, and all we have to do is find it.

Monsters in Society: An Interdisciplinary Perspective

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Publisher : BRILL
ISBN 13 : 1848882971
Total Pages : 202 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (488 download)

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Book Synopsis Monsters in Society: An Interdisciplinary Perspective by : Andrea S. Dauber

Download or read book Monsters in Society: An Interdisciplinary Perspective written by Andrea S. Dauber and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2019-01-04 with total page 202 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Egypt as a Monster in the Book of Ezekiel

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Publisher : Mohr Siebeck
ISBN 13 : 9783161532450
Total Pages : 316 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (324 download)

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Book Synopsis Egypt as a Monster in the Book of Ezekiel by : Safwat Marzouk

Download or read book Egypt as a Monster in the Book of Ezekiel written by Safwat Marzouk and published by Mohr Siebeck. This book was released on 2015-06-05 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Appealing to Monster Theory and the ancient Near Eastern motif of "Chaoskampf," Safwat Marzouk argues that the paradoxical character of the category of the monster is what prompts the portrayal of Egypt as a monster in the book of Ezekiel. While on the surface the monster seems to embody utter difference, underlying its otherness there is a disturbing sameness. Though the monster may be defeated and its body dismembered, it is never completely annihilated. Egypt is portrayed as a monster in the book of Ezekiel because Egypt represents the threat of religious assimilation. Although initially the monstrosity of Egypt is constructed because of the shared elements of identity between Egypt and Israel, the prophet flips this imagery of monster in order to embody Egypt as a monstrous Other. In a combat myth, YHWH defeats the monster and dismembers its body. Despite its near annihilation, Egypt, in Ezekiel's rhetoric, is not entirely obliterated. Rather, it is kept at bay, hovering at the periphery, questioning Israel's identity.

Monster Culture in the 21st Century

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Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN 13 : 144119326X
Total Pages : 344 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (411 download)

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Book Synopsis Monster Culture in the 21st Century by : Marina Levina

Download or read book Monster Culture in the 21st Century written by Marina Levina and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2013-05-23 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the past decade, our rapidly changing world faced terrorism, global epidemics, economic and social strife, new communication technologies, immigration, and climate change to name a few. These fears and tensions reflect an evermore-interconnected global environment where increased mobility of people, technologies, and disease have produced great social, political, and economical uncertainty. The essays in this collection examine how monstrosity has been used to manage these rising fears and tensions. Analyzing popular films and televisions shows, such as True Blood, Twilight, Paranormal Activity, District 9, Battlestar Galactica, and Avatar, it argues that monstrous narratives of the past decade have become omnipresent specifically because they represent collective social anxieties over resisting and embracing change in the 21st century. The first comprehensive text that uses monstrosity not just as a metaphor for change, but rather a necessary condition through which change is lived and experienced in the 21st century, this approach introduces a different perspective toward the study of monstrosity in culture.