Monstrous Things: Essays on Ghosts, Vampires, and Things That Go Bump in the Night

by Jeffrey Andrew Weinstock (Editor)

Overview

An indispensable resource for students and researchers of paranormal myth and media, this book explores the undead and unholy in literature, film, television, and popular culture. Following an introduction to frightful manifestations in media, sections address ghosts, vampires, and monsters individually, and each section includes a broad consideration of the ghost, vampire or monster in American culture.

The section dedicated to ghosts examines the "spectral turn" of popular culture and the ghost's relation to justice and mourning, with particular attention to Toni Morrison and Herman Melville. In the vampires section, the author considers the undead bloodsucker's relationship to anti-Semitism, suicide, and cinema. The third section discusses monsters in relation to topics such as global pandemics, terrorism, mass shootings, "stranger danger," and social otherness, with attention to a range of popular culture texts including the films IT and It Follows.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781476688299
Publisher:	McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
Publication date:	11/23/2022
Pages:	243
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.49(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Jeffrey Andrew Weinstock is a professor of English at Central Michigan University and an associate book review editor with the Los Angeles Review of Books. He has published 28 books and more than 100 essays and book chapters on horror, fantasy, science fiction, and American literature and culture. Visit him at JeffreyAndrewWeinstock.com.

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

Introduction: Monstrous Musings
Act I: Ghosts
The American Ghost Story
Introduction: The Spectral Turn
Doing Justice to Bartleby
Ten Minutes for Seven Letters: Reading Beloved’s Epitaph
Act II: Vampires
American Vampires
The Vampire Cinema
Circumcising Dracula
Vampire Suicide
Act III: Monsters
American Monsters
Introduction: A Genealogy of Monster Theory
Invisible Monsters: Vision, Horror, and Contemporary Culture
What Is IT? Ambient Dread and Modern Paranoia in It (2017), It Follows (2014), and It Comes at Night (2017)
Index

Editorial Reviews

Detailed and fascinating… Scholars new to these specific areas of literary or cinematic history would find it invaluable… Provides a thoughtful and well-researched history that makes for an excellent foundational text in the literary horror space.”—Journal of Popular Culture

From the Publisher