Monsters: interdisciplinary explorations in monstrosity (original) (raw)

2020, Palgrave Communications

There is a continued fascination with all things monster. This is partly due to the popular reception of Mary Shelley’s Monster, termed a ‘new species’ by its overreaching but admiringly determined maker Victor Frankenstein in the eponymous novel first published in 1818. The enduring impact of Shelley’s novel, which spans a plethora of subjects and genres in imagery and themes, raises questions of origin and identity, death, birth and family relationships, as well as the contradictory qualities of the monster. Monsters serve as metaphors for anxieties of aberration and innovation (Punter and Byron, 2004). Stephen Asma (2009) notes that monsters represent evil or moral transgression and each epoch, to speak with Michel Foucault (Abnormal: lectures at the Collège de France, 1975–75, 2003, p. 66), evidences a ‘particular type of monster’. Academic debates tend to explore how social and cultural threats come to be embodied in the figure of a monster and their actions literalise our deep...

Sign up for access to the world's latest research.

checkGet notified about relevant papers

checkSave papers to use in your research

checkJoin the discussion with peers

checkTrack your impact