Monstrous Spaces: The Other Frontier
Title | Monstrous Spaces: The Other Frontier PDF eBook |
Author | |
Publisher | BRILL |
Total Pages | 196 |
Release | 2019-01-04 |
Genre | Social Science |
ISBN | 1848881762 |
The book is a collection of essays presented during the First Global Conference of Monstrous Geography held at Manchester College, Oxford, and examines monstrous geographies, or the other frontier, a space that runs counter to the socially constructed space of culture.
Monstrous Spaces: The Other Frontier
Title | Monstrous Spaces: The Other Frontier PDF eBook |
Author | Niculae Liviu Gheran |
Publisher | |
Total Pages | |
Release | 2013 |
Genre | Social sciences |
ISBN | 9789004373914 |
Monstrous Geographies: Places and Spaces of the Monstrous
Title | Monstrous Geographies: Places and Spaces of the Monstrous PDF eBook |
Author | Sarah Montin |
Publisher | BRILL |
Total Pages | 264 |
Release | 2019-05-15 |
Genre | Social Science |
ISBN | 9004399437 |
The Truths of Monsters
Title | The Truths of Monsters PDF eBook |
Author | Ildikó Limpár |
Publisher | McFarland |
Total Pages | 258 |
Release | 2021-03-18 |
Genre | Social Science |
ISBN | 1476643741 |
As monster theory highlights, monsters are cultural symbols, guarding the borders that society creates to protect its values and norms. Adolescence is the time when one explores and aims at crossing borders to learn the rules of the culture that one will fit into as an adult. Exploring the roles of monsters in coming-of-age narratives and the need to confront and understand the monstrous, this work explores recent developments in the presentation of monsters--such as the vampire, the zombie, and the man-made monster--in maturation narratives, then moves on to discuss monsters inhabiting the psychic landscapes of child characters. Finally, it touches on monsters in science fiction, in which facing the monstrous is a variation of the New World narrative. Discussions of novels by M. R. Carey, Suzanne Collins, Neil Gaiman, Theodora Goss, Daryl Gregory, Sarah Maria Griffin, Seanan McGuire, Stephenie Meyer, Patrick Ness, and Jon Skovron are complemented by analysis of television series, such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Westworld.
Player vs. Monster
Title | Player vs. Monster PDF eBook |
Author | Jaroslav Svelch |
Publisher | MIT Press |
Total Pages | 235 |
Release | 2023-02-07 |
Genre | Games & Activities |
ISBN | 0262047756 |
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 American Imperial Gothic
Title | The American Imperial Gothic PDF eBook |
Author | Johan Hoglund |
Publisher | Routledge |
Total Pages | 224 |
Release | 2016-03-16 |
Genre | Social Science |
ISBN | 131704519X |
The imagination of the early twenty-first century is catastrophic, with Hollywood blockbusters, novels, computer games, popular music, art and even political speeches all depicting a world consumed by vampires, zombies, meteors, aliens from outer space, disease, crazed terrorists and mad scientists. These frequently gothic descriptions of the apocalypse not only commodify fear itself; they articulate and even help produce imperialism. Building on, and often retelling, the British ’imperial gothic’ of the late nineteenth century, the American imperial gothic is obsessed with race, gender, degeneration and invasion, with the destruction of society, the collapse of modernity and the disintegration of capitalism. Drawing on a rich array of texts from a long history of the gothic, this book contends that the doom faced by the world in popular culture is related to the current global instability, renegotiation of worldwide power and the American bid for hegemony that goes back to the beginning of the Republic and which have given shape to the first decade of the millennium. From the frontier gothic of Charles Brockden Brown's Edgar Huntly to the apocalyptic torture porn of Eli Roth's Hostel, the American imperial gothic dramatises the desires and anxieties of empire. Revealing the ways in which images of destruction and social upheaval both query the violence with which the US has asserted itself locally and globally, and feed the longing for stable imperial structures, this book will be of interest to scholars and students of popular culture, cultural and media studies, literary and visual studies and sociology.
Monsters in the Classroom
Title | Monsters in the Classroom PDF eBook |
Author | Adam Golub |
Publisher | McFarland |
Total Pages | 262 |
Release | 2017-03-03 |
Genre | Education |
ISBN | 1476663270 |
Exploring the pedagogical power of the monstrous, this collection of new essays describes innovative teaching strategies that use our cultural fascination with monsters to enhance learning in high school and college courses. The contributors discuss the implications of inviting fearsome creatures into the classroom, showing how they work to create compelling narratives and provide students a framework for analyzing history, culture, and everyday life. Essays explore ways of using the monstrous to teach literature, film, philosophy, theater, art history, religion, foreign language, and other subjects. Some sample syllabi, assignments, and class materials are provided.