"Destined to become a new classic . . . Elkin shatters the truisms that have evolved around feminist thought.” —Chris Kraus, author of I Love Dick and After Kathy Acker: A Literary Biography One of Lit Hub's most anticipated books of 2023 What kind of art does a monster make? And what if monster is a verb? Noun or a verb, the idea is a dare: to overwhelm limits, to invent our own definitions of beauty. In this dazzlingly original reassessment of women’s stories, bodies, and art, Lauren Elkin—the celebrated author of Flâneuse—explores the ways in which feminist artists have taken up the challenge of their work and how they not only react against the patriarchy but redefine their own aesthetic aims. How do we tell the truth about our experiences as bodies? What is the language, what are the materials, that we need to transcribe them? And what are the unique questions facing those engaged with female bodies, queer bodies, sick bodies, racialized bodies? Encompassing with a rich genealogy of work across the literary and artistic landscape, Elkin makes daring links between disparate points of reference— among them Julia Margaret Cameron’s photography, Kara Walker’s silhouettes, Vanessa Bell’s portraits, Eva Hesse’s rope sculptures, Carolee Schneemann’s body art, Theresa Hak Kyung Cha’s trilingual masterpiece DICTEE—and steps into the tradition of cultural criticism established by Susan Sontag, Hélène Cixous, and Maggie Nelson. An erudite, potent examination of beauty and excess, sentiment and touch, the personal and the political, the ambiguous and the opaque, Art Monsters is a radical intervention that forces us to consider how the idea of the art monster might transform the way we imagine—and enact—our lives.

A leading scholar explores what it means to dehumanize others—and how and why we do it. “I wouldn’t have accepted that they were human beings. You would see an infant who’s just learning to smile, and it smiles at you, but you still kill it.” So a Hutu man explained to an incredulous researcher, when asked to recall how he felt slaughtering Tutsis in Rwanda in 1994. Such statements are shocking, yet we recognize them; we hear their echoes in accounts of genocides, massacres, and pogroms throughout history. How do some people come to believe that their enemies are monsters, and therefore easy to kill? In Making Monsters David Livingstone Smith offers a poignant meditation on the philosophical and psychological roots of dehumanization. Drawing on harrowing accounts of lynchings, Smith establishes what dehumanization is and what it isn’t. When we dehumanize our enemy, we hold two incongruous beliefs at the same time: we believe our enemy is at once subhuman and fully human. To call someone a monster, then, is not merely a resort to metaphor—dehumanization really does happen in our minds. Turning to an abundance of historical examples, Smith explores the relationship between dehumanization and racism, the psychology of hierarchy, what it means to regard others as human beings, and why dehumanizing others transforms them into something so terrifying that they must be destroyed. Meticulous but highly readable, Making Monsters suggests that the process of dehumanization is deeply seated in our psychology. It is precisely because we are all human that we are vulnerable to the manipulations of those trading in the politics of demonization and violence.

This comprehensive atlas provides information on supernatural beings from around the world, presented in alphabetical order and including such creatures as changelings, the hydra, and werewolves. Sidebars and boxes highlight interesting facts, glossary, an index, and resources for further study conclude this meticulously illustrated book.

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.

From movies to comics to graphic novels, monsters and their ilk tap into the terror that lurks in the darkest regions of the human collective unconscious. Enduringly popular characters, from vampires to zombies, provide an exciting challenge and appeal to comics and animation artists. How to Draw Chiller Monsters, Werewolves, Vampires and Zombies features the artwork of comic-book artist and Hollywood monster designer Kerry Gammill, Gene Colan as well as Neal Adams, Jim Steranko, Jack Davis, David Hartman, Frank Frazetta, Basil Gogos, and Wally Wood.

The field of monster studies has grown significantly over the past few years and this companion provides a comprehensive guide to the study of monsters and the monstrous from historical, regional and thematic perspectives. The collection reflects the truly multi-disciplinary nature of monster studies, bringing in scholars from literature, art history, religious studies, history, classics, and cultural and media studies. The companion will offer scholars and graduate students the first comprehensive and authoritative review of this emergent field.

Elizabeth L. Hinson-Hasty pursues places where care for people with serious mental illness and their families is unraveled in the United States. She picks up threads of empowerment from the Christian tradition to address the distinctive circumstances of individuals and families affected by mental illness, and draws upon her own experiences as the sibling of someone with serious mental illness (SMI). As a scholar of theology and Christian ethics, the author challenges the traditional theological explanations of disability and madness and the public policies that try to fit people with SMI into boxes and checklists made for those with minds and bodies society values as ideal. Dutiful Love explores the distinctive relationship between self-sacrificial love and caregiving when that duty to care extends over the course of an entire lifetime because of social limitations placed upon people with mental illness. Hinson-Hasty investigates how the Christian theological tradition shapes our Western understanding of normal and abnormal minds and bodies. This approach to mental and physical impairment associates healing with curing but neglects the empowerment thread that is part of the gospel narrative. The author encourages caregivers (whether professionals, friends, or families) to think about the concept of self-giving as an alternative to self-sacrifice. In the context of families impacted by mental illness or degenerative disease, healing is more synonymous with presence. Intentional presence involves self-giving, listening, contemplation, prophetic truth-telling, and walking with another so that isolation, stigma, and shame no longer define the social realities of people with mental illness, their siblings, or their larger families. The book includes discussion questions, making it an ideal resource for individual reflection, church study groups, and college, seminary, and university classrooms.

Presents a world of strange and unusual creatures known as monsters.

It has often been claimed that "monsters"--supernatural creatures with bodies composed from multiple species--play a significant part in the thought and imagery of all people from all times. The Origins of Monsters advances an alternative view. Composite figurations are intriguingly rare and isolated in the art of the prehistoric era. Instead it was with the rise of cities, elites, and cosmopolitan trade networks that "monsters" became widespread features of visual production in the ancient world. Showing how these fantastic images originated and how they were transmitted, David Wengrow identifies patterns in the records of human image-making and embarks on a search for connections between mind and culture. Wengrow asks: Can cognitive science explain the potency of such images? Does evolutionary psychology hold a key to understanding the transmission of symbols? How is our making and perception of images influenced by institutions and technologies? Wengrow considers the work of art in the first age of mechanical reproduction, which he locates in the Middle East, where urban life began. Comparing the development and spread of fantastic imagery across a range of prehistoric and ancient societies, including Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, and China, he explores how the visual imagination has been shaped by a complex mixture of historical and universal factors. Examining the reasons behind the dissemination of monstrous imagery in ancient states and empires, The Origins of Monsters sheds light on the relationship between culture and cognition.

First Published in 2002. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.