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Dodd, Sarah Louise. "Monsters and monstrosity in Liaozhai zhiyi." Thesis, University of Leeds, 2013. http://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/6445/.
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In Liaozhai zhiyi, a collection of almost five hundred tales by Pu Songling (1640-1715), young scholars fall in love with beautiful fox spirits or meet ghosts in abandoned temples; corpses walk and men change into birds; hideous apparitions invade the home, bodies become unfamiliar, children are born to women long dead, and things are rarely what they first seem. Throughout the collection, the monstrous intrudes on the ordered spaces of the human world, bringing disorder but also the fulfilment of desire. The collection was written by a man who was trapped in the 'examination hell' of the Chinese civil service system, and in the years since his death has brought him the success he never achieved in his professional life, being read, critiqued, loved, and adapted by successive generations, until the work itself has become as monstrous as a hybrid as some of the creatures within its pages. The Liaozhai tales which have received the most critical and popular attention are the tales of enchantment and romance between human men and ghosts or fox spirits. Yet this focus on only certain types of tale has meant that the collection, which is made up of patchwork of different traditions and influences, is rarely considered as a whole. This thesis attempts to redress the balance by arguing that the collection is a monstrous hybrid, made out of fragments of folklore, myth, previous stories and pure invention, using different literary traditions and created by the assumed persona of an author -the Historian of the Strange -who is himself as hybrid as some of the creatures in his tales. Because of this textual hybridity, combined with the myriad anomalous figures within its pages, the thesis takes the representation of monstrosity as central to the collection, using Jeffrey Jerome Cohen's 'Monster Culture' as a starting point. His influential work, first published in 1996, argues that the monster is a 'cultural body', containing the fears, anxieties and desires of the culture in which it is born. I hope that the thematic focus on the monster will allow the collection to be approached as an entity, considering the different types of tale, and the different figures within them, and how they work together or against each other. I argue that the examination of the monster as a 'cultural body' will add to the understanding of Liaozhai within the context of early Qing society and culture, in the way it can be seen as paradoxically both subverting and supporting social norms.
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Lazaro-Reboll, Antonio. "Facing monstrosity in Goya's Los Caprichos (1799)." Thesis, University of Nottingham, 2004. http://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/12958/.
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The aim of this thesis is to offer a re-evaluation of our cultural assumptions concerning the monstrous in the work of Francisco Jose de Goya y Lucientes (1746- 1828), specifically his collection of etchings Los Caprichos (1799). In my study there are three closely related areas of investigation: the image of the monstrous body in Goya's work; the cultural aspects of monsters and monstrous forms in Western discourses and in the Spanish Enlightenment; and the theoretical encounter between the history of the sciences and deconstructive criticism. The interaction between these three areas provides a background against which to understand the Goyaesque body within the context of Spanish cultural practices. Through an examination of eighteenth-century Spanish reformist absolutism, this thesis explores the contradictions, limits, or insufficiencies of the Spanish Ilustraciön in order to establish the ideological, cultural and artistic context out of which Los Caprichos emerged. One of the central issues that runs through my study is to establish how far, and in what ways, Los Caprichos can be seen as an Enlightenment work. Traditional readings of Los Caprichos have paid very little critical attention to the monstrous human bodies depicted in the collection in the context of eighteenth century discourses on monstrosity and corporeality. Los Caprichos invite a more complex, multifaceted consideration both of the body and the monster, of corporeality and monstrosity. By focusing on the Goyaesque body, the aim of this thesis is to open up a series of questions on the ways in which the monstrous body can be thought of in the critique of culture. This study therefore seeks to provide a cultural history of the monstrous body in the art of Goya, showing how his pictorial representations in the collection of etchings Los Caprichos offer a critique of reason and problematize the perception and treatment of (European and Spanish) Enlightenment configurations of the body. It is my contention that Los Caprichos can be read in Enlightenment ways yet there are elements of an ideological, cultural and artistic nature that problematize such credentials, pointing to the limits and contradictions of the Spanish Enlightenment itself.
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Fawcett, Christina. "J.R.R. Tolkien and the morality of monstrosity." Thesis, University of Glasgow, 2014. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/4993/.
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This thesis asserts that J.R.R. Tolkien recreates Beowulf for the twentieth century. His 1936 lecture, ‘Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics’ sets the tone not only for twentieth century criticism of the text, but also Tolkien’s own fictional project: creating an imagined world in which ‘new Scripture and old tradition touched and ignited’ (‘B: M&C’ 26). At the core of his analysis of Beowulf, and at the core of his own Middle-earth, are the monsters. He creates creatures that are an ignition of past and present, forming characters that defy allegory and simple moral categorization. To demonstrate the necessity of reading Tolkien’s Middle-earth through the lens of his 1936 lecture, I begin by examining the broad literary source material that Tolkien draws into his creative process. I assert that an understanding of the formation of monstrosity, from classical, Augustinian, late medieval, Renaissance, Restoration and Gothic sources, is fundamental to seeing the complexity, and thus the didactic element, of Tolkien’s monsters. As a medieval scholar and professor, Tolkien’s focus on the educational potential of a text appears in his critical work and is enacted in his fiction. Tolkien takes on a mode of writing categorized as Wisdom Literature: he writes a series of texts that demonstrate the imperative lesson that ‘swa sceal man don’ (so shall man do) found in Beowulf. Tolkien’s fiction takes up this challenge, demonstrating for the reader what a hero must do when faced with the moral and physical challenge of the monster. Monsters are a primarily didactic tool, demonstrating vice and providing challenges for the hero to overcome. Monsters are at the core of Tolkien’s critical reading; it must be at the core of ours.
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McLennan, Alistair. "Monstrosity in Old English and Old Icelandic literature." Thesis, University of Glasgow, 2010. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/2287/.
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Thesis Abstract. The purpose of this thesis is to examine Old English and Old Icelandic literary examples of monstrosity from a modern theoretical perspective. I examine the processes of monstrous change by which humans can become identified as monsters, focusing on the role played by social and religious pressures. In the first chapter, I outline the aspects of monster theory and medieval thought relevant to the role of society in shaping identity, and the ways in which anti-societal behaviour is identified with monsters and with monstrous change. Chapter two deals more specifically with Old English and Old Icelandic social and religious beliefs as they relate to human and monstrous identity. I also consider the application of generic monster terms in Old English and Old Icelandic. Chapters three to six offer readings of humans and monsters in Old English and Old Icelandic literary texts in cases where a transformation from human to monster occurs or is blocked. Chapter three focuses on Grendel and Heremod in Beowulf and the ways in which extreme forms of anti-societal behaviour are associated with monsters. In chapter four I discuss the influence of religious beliefs and secular behaviour in the context of the transformation of humans into the undead in the Íslendingasögur. In chapter five I consider outlaws and the extent to which criminality can result in monstrous change. I demonstrate that only in the most extreme instances is any question of an outlaw’s humanity raised. Even then, the degree of sympathy or admiration evoked by such legendary outlaws as Grettir, Gísli and Hörðr means that though they are ambiguous in life, they may be redeemed in death. The final chapter explores the threats to human identity represented by the wilderness, with specific references to Guthlac A, Andreas and Bárðar saga and the impact of Christianity on the identity of humans and monsters. I demonstrate that analysis of the social and religious issues in Old English and Old Icelandic literary sources permits nuanced readings of monsters and monstrosity which in turn enriches understanding of the texts in their entirety.
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Rodriguez-, Pereira Victor. "Change, Monstrosity, and Hybridity in Medieval Iberian Literature." Thesis, Indiana University, 2018. http://pqdtopen.proquest.com/#viewpdf?dispub=10937457.
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Monstrosity and transformation were intrinsically connected topics during premodern times. From Ovid’s Metamorphoses ( circa 8 CE) to Isidore of Seville’s Etymologies (560–636 CE), intellectuals of all fields of knowledge explored the possibility of human physical transformation, and its consequences. This dissertation will approach hybrid monstrosity in imaginative literature of medieval Iberia on the basis of its textual and formal representations, but also as the repository of cultural significance and ideologies that characterize a particular time and place. My study focuses on five medieval Spanish texts: the Libro del cavallero Zifar (Book of the Knight Zifar, c. 1300) often considered one of the first chivalric novels written in Spain; the Libro de buen amor (Book of Good Love, c. 1330–1343) a satirical and parodic poem fully grounded in both learned and popular culture; the Amadís de Gaula ( Amadís of Gaul) (1508) and its sequel, Las sergas de Esplandián (The Adventures of Esplandián ) (1510); and the Alborayque (circa 1454–74), an anti-Jewish illustrated pamphlet published in Castile at the end of the fifteenth century. My dissertation unpacks the concepts of monstrosity and transformation present in medieval European culture, and the ways these are displayed in a variety of texts in order to reinforce or undermine religious, gender, and ethnic anxieties. In addition, my research traces the shifts in attitudes akin to processes of transformation in monstrous beings between the thirteenth and sixteenth centuries. It will be clear that during the fourteenth century monstrosity and change were connected to religious identity, while during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries the texts studied embody the political agenda aimed at unifying the Peninsula through the idea of the Reconquista (the Christian retaking of Muslim lands), and the cultural and social struggles between the different cultural and religious communities.
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Bowring, Nicola. "Figures of anxiety: communication and monstrosity in Gothic fiction." Thesis, University of Nottingham, 2013. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.606008.
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This thesis seeks to explore the subject of communication in gothic fiction, identifying this as a key theme in terms of anxiety as explored in this genre of fiction. Communication is related specifically here to the concept of monstrosity, and representations of monstrous figures within the genre of gothic fiction. The study is made through three key areas, the first focusing on language and communication, the second on the concept of the other and how alterity relates to communication, and the third examining the question of community as a key aspect within the theme of communication in gothic narratives. A wide range of texts is taken for discussion, historically speaking, from the earliest, Dacre's 1806 novel ZoJloya, through to the 2002 film 28 Days Later. Literary texts, films and television are included here for the different aspects they bring to the debate.
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Saunders, Rosalyn. "The monster within : emerging monstrosity in Old English literature." Thesis, University of Glasgow, 2013. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/4166/.
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This thesis examines representations of monstrosity in Old English literature. The literary studies herein examine the construction of monstrous individuals in Old English poetry, and I demonstrate that literary monstrous types converge and develop a tradition of monstrosity that informs the monsters of the Liber monstrorum and Anglo-Saxon Wonders of the East. I argue that, for Old English writers, a monster was not necessarily a deformed being located in the distant lands of the East; rather, the literary and linguistic evidence suggests that any man or woman had the potential to become a monstrous type within the conventional social order. The Old English works examined are Precepts, Maxims I and II, Vainglory, Judith, The Battle of Maldon and Beowulf because each text reveals that Old English writers utilised binary sex and gender differences to define the social roles and behaviours appropriate for the masculine and feminine. According to critical theory, gender is a performance and both men and women must therefore prove their gender identities by behaving in a certain way and fulfilling the roles deemed appropriate for their gender. In failing to conform to the expectations of their gender, a gender-monstrosity matrix works upon the social transgressors, excluding them from the social order and distorting their gender identities into a monstrously confused yet recognisable construct. In the literary works examined, the monstrous type is not only the antithesis to the idealised masculine and feminine, but is also a malevolent figure whose anti-social words and actions transgress gender expectations. I demonstrate that the danger posed by the monster is not only physical, but also psychological. The monster threatens the communal harmony of the social order because, in Old English literature, monstrosity emerges in the form of an uncontrolled riot that incites unrest and enmity in the hall, or as words and outward actions that are purposely deployed (or withheld) in order to demoralise, destroy, and even consume the masculine symbolic order in the pursuit of self-gratification.
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Leno, Olivia. "Holy monstrosity: a study of François Mauriac’s Thérèse Desqueyroux." Thesis, Kansas State University, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/2097/35455.
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Master of ArtsDepartment of Modern Languages
Kathleen Antonioli
In a world painted black and white, monsters are always evil and they always seek to destroy what is good, with or without reason. However, twentieth-century Catholic novelist François Mauriac, in his Thérèse Desqueyroux, proposes that the matter of monstrosity is not so easily defined. In a mysterious preface to the novel, Mauriac employs a Baudelarian epigraph that brings murkiness to this definition: “O Créateur ! peut-il exister des monstres aux yeux de celui-là seul qui sait pourquoi ils existent, comment ils se sont faits.. ” (13, italics original). Through the words of Baudelaire, Mauriac questions the nature of his protagonist Thérèse, a “semi-empoisonneuse,” and in the process of doing so, revolutionizes the Catholic novel and the role of women in literature. In this paper, I intend to prove that Mauriac’s departure from the typical Catholic novel and its clichéd protagonist brings complexity to feminine representation by analyzing a “monstrous” female protagonist. Through analysis of historical development of the Catholic novel, as well women’s roles (inside and outside of literature) during and after World War I, this paper seeks to demonstrate that François Mauriac’s representation of women is groundbreaking in comparison to literary works at the time. Mauriac dismisses the pious prototype of the Catholic novel and instead choses a dark and “monstrous” woman as his creation. This paper will examine Thérèse’s refusal of societal roles as wife and mother, as well as Mauriac’s tone, in order to demonstrate the revolutionary portrayal of a monster as his protagonist.
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Villanueva, Aura. "Institution and Monstrosity in the Narrative of Fernando Contreras Castro." Thesis, Virginia Tech, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/10919/77427.
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This thesis examines the ways in which the rapid economic changes, as portrayed in two Costa Rican novels, Única mirando al mar (1993) and Los Peor (1995) by Fernando Contreras Castro, serve as solid foundation for laying out the deep-rooted economic and political challenges that have profoundly affected not only Costa Rican society but many of the national institutions. It focuses on revealing the uprising unfertile relationship between the residents and the governmental institutions, whose monstrous model of behavior are incompatible with the Costa Rican Constitution and thus, generating a systematic shift in the social norms. It explores the historical and literary Costa Rican context demonstrating how the narrative shade considerable light on the complex system of governance and its fragility in a democratic society.Master of Arts
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Roberts, Evan David. "History, power and monstrosity from Shakespeare to the fin de siècle." Thesis, Swansea University, 2007. https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa43132.
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This thesis examines the historical significance of literary representations of monsters and monstrosity over several centuries, in the belief that literary monstrosity is symptomatic of wider anxieties concerning contemporary fears of historical change during periods of potentially revolutionary social upheaval. This leads to the conclusion that history itself thus becomes monstrous, through symbolising a disruptive, chaotic, and above all uncanny return of such repressed fears from the monstrous past of the British bourgeoisie. My first chapter examines how Renaissance authors such as William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe and John Milton use monstrosity to depict a nascent bourgeoisie's fears of increasing royal and aristocratic tyranny. Following this, my second chapter investigates how the Monster becomes an overdetermined cultural sign of revolutionary historical change in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. Bram Stoker's Dracula is discussed in my third chapter, with fears of monstrous foreign invaders showing the fin-de-siecle bourgeoisie as haunted, both by their horrific past, and by a future loss of power to radical historical forces represented above all by the monstrous New Woman. In my fourth chapter, H.G. Wells's scientific romances embody the finde- siecle bourgeoisie's unease at their increasing dependence upon monstrous science to maintain their power, especially since its military applications would soon bleed their empire dry in the First World War. My fifth chapter, meanwhile, explains how monstrous criminals in texts by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Robert Louis Stevenson and Oscar Wilde show the irruption of uncanny history into the ideological self-image of the fin-de-siecle social order. I shall then conclude by reaffirming the contribution that all this makes to advancing the study of monstrosity, and in particular to exploring connections between history and the monstrous.
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Tyrrell, Kimberley English Media & Performing Arts Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences UNSW. "???The monsters next door???: representations of whiteness and monstrosity in contemporary culture." Awarded by:University of New South Wales, 2007. http://handle.unsw.edu.au/1959.4/35639.
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The focus of this thesis is the examination of whiteness as a dominant identity and subject position. Whiteness has conventionally assumed a normative, monolithic status as the template of humanity. Recent theorising has attempted to specify and denaturalise whiteness. In order to participate in this fracturing of whiteness, I analyse examples in which it functions as a site of contested and ambiguous contradiction. To this end, I use contemporary monstrosity to examine whiteness. Monstrosity is a malleable and culturally specific category of difference that measures alterity, and by displaying discursive functions in an extreme form offers insight into the ways in which deviance and normativity operate. I argue that the conjunction of whiteness and monstrosity, through displaying whiteness in a negative register, depicts some of the discursive operations that enable whiteness to attain such hegemonic dominance. I deploy theories of marginalisation and subjectivation drawn from a variety of feminist, critical race, and philosophical perspectives in order to further an understanding of the discursive operations of hegemonic and normative subject positions. I offer a brief history and overview of both the history and prior conceptualisations of monstrosity and whiteness, and then focus on two particular examples of contemporary white monstrosity. I closely examine the representation of monstrosity in serial killer films. The figure of the serial killer is typically a white, heterosexual, middle class male whose monstrosity is implicitly reliant upon these elements. In my discussion of the recent phenomenon of fatal shootings at high schools in North America, I investigate the way the massacre at Columbine High School functions as the public face of the phenomenon and for the unique interest it generated in the mass media. I focus on a Time magazine cover that featured a photograph of the adolescent perpetrators under the heading The Monsters Next Door, which condensed and emblematised the tension that they generated. It is through the perpetrators uneasy occupation of dual subject positions???namely the unassuming all American boy and the contemporary face of evil???that their simultaneous representation as average and alien undermines the notion of whiteness as neutral and invisible.
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Wright, Alexa. "Out of Order An investigation into the visual significance of human monstrosity." Thesis, University of Westminster, 2009. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.507843.
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Angell, Katherine. "The language of monstrosity : teratology in nineteenth-century science, literature and culture." Thesis, Queen Mary, University of London, 2011. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.610950.
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Cope-Crisford, Maya. "Deviance and Desire: Embodiments of Female Monstrosity in Nineteenth-Century Female Gothic." University of Akron / OhioLINK, 2016. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=akron1460401165.
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Gil, Cécilia Alexandra. "Monstrosity in post-1990 French women's writing : a case study of four authors." Thesis, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, 2016. http://hdl.handle.net/10443/3171.
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The final decade of the twentieth century in France saw the emergence of a “new generation” of women writers who offered imaginative renegotiations of corporeal representation. Amongst these newly-created textual bodies, monstrous characters came to populate female-authored stories and presented multiple challenges, disturbing readers and social conventions of physical propriety. In this study, the challenge lies particularly in demonstrating how selected authors have envisaged monstrosity as a means of interrogating changing models of corporeal identity, especially when the subject is undergoing typical physical/psychological transformations of the human lifecycle. Literary and cultural critics have tended to regard the monster either as an insight into people’s perceptions of their time and social context, or as projections of fears and desires of the human psyche. Whilst most of these readings fail to consider both the social and individual domains where the monstrous intersects, I posit that monstrosity is most productively approached as an evocation of rejection of corporeal and behavioural difference, as it becomes visible to others and to the subject him/herself. I therefore combine a psychoanalytical approach (Julia Kristeva) and theories of power structures within social institutions (Michel Foucault) to decipher the resulting complex response of social and self-rejection of the monstrous subject. Focusing on four post-1990 French women writers – Régine Detambel, Louise L. Lambrichs, Lorette Nobécourt, and Amélie Nothomb – I explore how these authors have represented monstrosity in terms of limits and demands which are socially imposed on subjects and which are registered upon and circumscribe the body. These authors’ dual social and individual approach to the monstrous allows me to re-evaluate multiple contemporary anxieties around physical difference and bodily changes and gives monstrosity a new voice. I unveil how the texts analysed here creatively offer new spaces to re-think bodily difference and open up other possibilities for human subjectivity.
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Warnick, Claire. "Cathy Trask, Monstrosity, and Gender-Based Fears in John Steinbeck’s East of Eden." BYU ScholarsArchive, 2014. https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/etd/5282.
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In recent years, the concept of monstrosity has received renewed attention by literary critics. Much of this criticism has focused on horror texts and other texts that depict supernatural monsters. However, the way that monster theory explores the connection between specific cultures and their monsters illuminates not only our understanding of horror texts, but also our understanding of any significant cultural artwork. Applying monster theory to non-horror texts is a useful and productive way to more fully understand the cultural fears of a society. One text that is particularly fruitful to explore in this context is John Steinbeck’s 1952 novel, East of Eden. The personification of evil in the text is one of the most memorable monsters in 20th century American literature—Cathy Ames Trask. Described by the narrator as a monster from birth, Cathy haunts the text. She rejects any and all attempts to force her to behave in socially acceptable ways. Cathy refuses to abide by the roles that mid-century American culture assigned to women, particularly the roles of wife and mother. Feminist theorists have often examined Cathy’s character in this context, although many of them emphasize Steinbeck’s personal misogyny. While Steinbeck’s personal fears have clearly formed the basis of Cathy’s character, the concept of the monster extends beyond idiosyncratic fears. Monster theory, through its emphasis on the particular cultural moment of the monster, allows for a broader understanding of cultural fears. Although the description of Cathy in the text connects her to a long tradition of female monsters, including Lilith and the Siren, Steinbeck’s characterization of the monstrous woman focuses on specific mid-century American cultural fears. The most significant of these cultural fears are those of emasculation and the potential flexibility of gender roles. These fears have often been associated with the feminine monster, but they became a crucial part of postwar American cultural discourse. The character of Cathy Trask, while exhibiting many traits that have been assigned to female monsters during the course of Western history, is essentially a 20th century American monster, one who encapsulates the fears of midcentury American men faced with rapidly changing gender roles and boundaries. The creation of such a horrifyingly monstrous woman, one that continues to haunt the reader even after her eventual de-monstration, testifies to the intense cultural anxiety about gender roles, particularly in the context of the heterosexual nuclear family, present in post-World War II America. This anxiety is dealt with in the figure of the monster Cathy, who represents forbidden desires and is then punished for those desires; her eventual demise reinforces the culturally patriarchal social structure and serves as a warning against transgressive gender behavior.
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Corrao, Elizabeth A. "Beowulf and other Monsters: Reconsidering Traditional Assumptions about Monstrosity in the Characters of Beowulf." University of Akron / OhioLINK, 2012. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=akron1342374898.
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Berg, Jason Ryan. "How monstrosity and geography were used to define the other in early medieval Europe." Thesis, University of Leeds, 2015. http://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/11353/.
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My thesis deals with texts that are either often not investigated in their entirety or that have large portions of their narratives overlooked in favour of more traditionally popular sections. The stories and descriptions of monstrous races included in these texts, many of which are cornerstones of western myth – cynocephali, amazons, cyclopes, giants, dragons, etc. – were inherited by the Early Middle Ages from its Greco-Roman past and redeployed in response to shifting frontiers, both literally and metaphorically in order to make sense of their new world. My thesis is very much an inter-disciplinary study, making use of anthropological and literary theory concerning social identity and the conceptions of the fabulous, miraculous, and the monstrous and combines a close textual analysis of primary source material with a detailed reconstruction of the context in which these texts were created and transmitted. What was it about these particular texts that resulted in their widespread transmission? How were these descriptions of the monstrous used to define the other? How were these same descriptions used to define barbarian groups? Was there a geographical link between where these texts placed their monsters and real geographical frontiers? How were texts like this used to shape a Christian identity in such a way that it was distinct from a non-Christian one? These questions and others like them will lie at the heart of my thesis.
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Leblanc, Amanda K. "Opening Wounds and Possibilities: A Critical Examination of Violence and Monstrosity in Horror TV." Scholar Commons, 2018. https://scholarcommons.usf.edu/etd/7326.
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This dissertation examines contemporary horror TV, dissecting the ways it works both to subvert and uphold contemporary social standards about race, gender, class, and ability. This work attends to the moments in horror TV where graphic displays of violence and monstrous characters open up possibilities for innovative and progressive representation of historically marginalized people, as well as those instances that foreclose such potential. Horror TV shows blur the definitions of monster and human, suggesting that humans can be monstrous and that monsters can have humanity. Horror TV is a platform through which we see the coming together of a traditional logic about what is and what is supposed to be with a radical suggestion that, perhaps, things could be another way. This dissertation closely examines two seasons of American Horror Story – Coven and Freakshow – along with Hannibal and Penny Dreadful, as symptomatic texts of a dynamic sociopolitical moment in the United States where progressive and conservative worldviews sometimes violently clash.
This dissertation examines the role of performance in horror TV, literal and figurative theater spaces that frame action in ways that disrupt hetero-patriarchal epistemologies. Order and chaos, reason and emotion, the natural and the supernatural often “crash” together in violent ways on the stages of horror TV, sometimes inviting something alternative to emerge. These often-violent performances serve as microcosms for the larger set of narratives and images we see in horror TV.
This dissertation examines the figure of the dandy, who emerges in all the horror TV shows included in this work. The dandy is a contradictory character, at once queering social conventions of white masculinity, while also recuperating a traditional and dominant social position through violence. The dandy’s violent behavior is a kind of consumption: the taking of bodies and lives to satisfy their boredom. The horror TV dandy may be villainous, but is also the embodiment of the contemporary, good, white citizen who puts consuming above all else.
This dissertation also attends to the ways that horror TV is, perhaps unsurprisingly, the product of a white imagination. Horror TV masks the ways that it forwards a white worldview by portraying stories about racial difference and racism, while narratively confining the material implications of racism to the past. Some horror TV shows further center whiteness by suggesting that “horror” (the weird, the macabre, and the terrifying) comes from a distant and exotic place – specifically the Dark Continent of Africa or the Exotic East of Japan and India.
Contemporary horror TV, however, presents some of the most innovative portrayals of (mostly white) women in lead roles through the figure of the antihero. The women antiheroes of horror TV act via their relationship to cultural and political oppression, often in the form of violence. As a result of the traumas they have experienced, the women of horror TV embody both heroic and villainous qualities. The antihero women speak to contemporary cultural attitudes about women’s changing position in the United States, and that we only see white leading antihero women on horror TV points to the fact that women of color are not afforded the same multifaceted representation.
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McBride, Patrick F. "The idea of monstrosity, and its cultural trajectory through the scientific and popular imagination." Thesis, McBride, Patrick F. (1996) The idea of monstrosity, and its cultural trajectory through the scientific and popular imagination. Masters by Coursework thesis, Murdoch University, 1996. https://researchrepository.murdoch.edu.au/id/eprint/50236/.
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This dissertation is concerned with an archetypal idea, the idea of monstrosity. It would be too ambitious to claim that this dissertation is the history of an idea, rather, it is the more modest project of tracing the trajectory of the idea of monstrosity through some of the domains of human endeavour. As such it is also an interdisciplinary project, thus insights have been gained from anthropology, the history of science, as well as literature and, perhaps more fruitfully of all, the occult…
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O'Riley, Kelly M. "Hagiography, Teratology, and the "History" of Michael Jackson." Digital Archive @ GSU, 2011. http://digitalarchive.gsu.edu/rs_theses/33.
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Before his death, Michael Jackson arguably was one of the most famous living celebrities to walk the planet. Onstage, on air, and onscreen, he captivated the attention of millions of people around the world, whether because they loved him or loved to hate him. In an attempt to explain his popularity and cultural influence, I analyze certain theoretical and methodological approaches found in recent scholarship on western hagiographic and teratological texts, and apply these theories and methods to selected biographies written on Michael Jackson. By interpreting the biographies in this way, I suggest why saints, monsters, and celebrities have received considerable attention in their respective communities, and demonstrate how public responses to these figures are contextual, constructed, and often contradictory.
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Gardner, Kelly. "The emergence and development of the sentient zombie : zombie monstrosity in postmodern and posthuman Gothic." Thesis, University of Stirling, 2015. http://hdl.handle.net/1893/23901.
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The zombie narrative has seen an increasing trend towards the emergence of a zombie sentience. The intention of this thesis is to examine the cultural framework that has informed the contemporary figure of the zombie, with specific attention directed towards the role of the thinking, conscious or sentient zombie. This examination will include an exploration of the zombie’s folkloric origin, prior to the naming of the figure in 1819, as well as the Haitian appropriation and reproduction of the figure as a representation of Haitian identity. The destructive nature of the zombie, this thesis argues, sees itself intrinsically linked to the notion of apocalypse; however, through a consideration of Frank Kermode’s A Sense of an Ending, the second chapter of this thesis will propose that the zombie need not represent an apocalypse that brings devastation upon humanity, but rather one that functions to alter perceptions of ‘humanity’ itself. The third chapter of this thesis explores the use of the term “braaaaiiinnss” as the epitomised zombie voice in the figure’s development as an effective threat within zombie-themed videogames. The use of an epitomised zombie voice, I argue, results in the potential for the embodiment of a zombie subject. Chapter Four explores the development of this embodied zombie subject through the introduction of the Zombie Memoire narrative and examines the figure as a representation of Agamben’s Homo Sacer or ‘bare life’: though often configured as a non-sacrificial object that can be annihilated without sacrifice and consequence, the zombie, I argue, is also paradoxically inscribed in a different, Girardian economy of death that renders it as the scapegoat to the construction of a sense of the ‘human’. The final chapter of this thesis argues that both the traditional zombie and the sentient zombie function within the realm of a posthuman potentiality, one that, to varying degrees of success, attempts to progress past the restrictive binaries constructed within the overruling discourse of humanism. In conclusion, this thesis argues that while the zombie, both traditional and sentient, attempts to propose a necessary move towards a posthuman universalism, this move can only be considered if the ‘us’ of humanism embraces the potential of its own alterity.
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Alder, Emily. "William Hope Hodgson's borderlands : monstrosity, other worlds, and the future at the fin de siècle." Thesis, Edinburgh Napier University, 2009. http://researchrepository.napier.ac.uk/Output/3597.
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William Hope Hodgson has generally been understood as the author of several atmospheric sea-horror stories and two powerful but flawed horror science fiction novels. There has been no substantial study analysing the historical and cultural context of his fiction or its place in the Gothic, horror, and science fiction literary traditions. Through analysing the theme of borderlands, this thesis contextualises Hodgson's novels and short stories within these traditions and within late Victorian cultural discourse. Liminal other world realms, boundaries of corporeal monstrosity, and the imagined future of the world form key elements of Hodgson's fiction, reflecting the currents of anxiety and optimism characterising fin-de-siècle British society. Hodgson's early career as a sailor and his interest in body-building and physical culture colour his fiction. Fin-de-siècle discourses of evolution, entropy, spiritualism, psychical research, and the occult also influence his ideas. In The House on the Borderland (1908) and The Night Land (1912), the known world brushes against other forms of reality, exposing humanity to incomprehensible horrors. In The Ghost Pirates (1909), the sea forms a liminal region on the borderland of materiality and immateriality in which other world encounters can take place. In The Night Land and The Boats of the ‘Glen Carrig' (1907), evolution gives rise to strange monstrous forms existing on the borderlines of species and identity. In Hodgson's science fiction—The House on the Borderland and The Night Land—the future of the earth forms a temporal borderland of human existence shaped by fin-de-siècle fears of entropy and the heat-death of the sun. Alongside the work of other writers such as H. G. Wells and Arthur Machen, Hodgson's four novels respond to the borderland discourses of the fin de siècle, better enabling us to understand the Gothic literature of the period as well as Hodgson's position as a writer who offers a unique imaginative perspective on his contemporary culture.
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Girodet, Catherine. "Monstrosity in the music of PJ Harvey et Nick : the poetics of the grotesque in rock." Thesis, Montpellier 3, 2019. http://www.theses.fr/2019MON30064.
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- Etude du recours au monstrueux au niveau musical, thématique, structural, esthétique, et de son utilisation comme ressort d’une esthétique grotesque de transgression et d’excès. - En s’appuyant sur les modalités du monstrueux dans les œuvres des deux artistes, en terme de musique (dissonance et hybridation musicale), de paroles, et de sujet incarné (personae, autoreprésentations, galerie de personnages), il s’agit de mettre au jour les stratégies de rupture et de contradiction et l’esthétique de l’abject déployés, ainsi que la poétique grotesque qui les sous-tend. - Apport d’une étude conjointe : mise en résonnance des deux œuvres, les éclairer l’une par l’autre, ouvrir un champ d’exploration neuf sur les interactions des deux œuvres entre elles, et entre le genre gothique et la musique rock- investigating the use of the monstrous trope on the musical, thematic,structural and aesthetic levels, as a centrepiece for a grotesque aesthetic of transgression and excess - by studying the modalities of the monstrous in the works of the two artists , in terms of music (dissonance and musical hybridisation), lyrics, and embodied self (personae, self-representations, character gallery), this research aims to bring to light the disruptive strategies and the aesthetics of the abject deployed, as well as the underlying grotesque poetics - benefit of a joint study: contrastive approach to the two bodies of work, open fresh investigative field on the interplay between the two musicscapes, and between Gothic and rock musi
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Teodorski, Marko [Verfasser], and Dorothee [Akademischer Betreuer] Kimmich. "Through the Siren's Looking-Glass : Victorian Monstrosity of the Male Desiring Subject / Marko Teodorski ; Betreuer: Dorothee Kimmich." Tübingen : Universitätsbibliothek Tübingen, 2017. http://d-nb.info/1199546771/34.
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Hall, Kimberly Ann. "Why does my form appear to create such terror? monstrosity and gender in four nineteenth-century novels /." Connect to Electronic Thesis (CONTENTdm), 2009. http://worldcat.org/oclc/457040068/viewonline.
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Cardillo, Matteo <1994>. "The Legacy of Frankenstein’s Creature: Monstrosity and Female Grotesque in Mary Shelley, Angela Carter and Jeanette Winterson." Doctoral thesis, Alma Mater Studiorum - Università di Bologna, 2022. http://amsdottorato.unibo.it/10347/1/TESI%20Matteo%20Cardillo.pdf.
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This English Literature thesis (European PhD EDGES – Women’s and Gender Studies – 34th cycle) is an investigation into the representation of the monstrous body according to the British writers Mary Shelley, Angela Carter and Jeanette Winterson. The main objective is to observe how the representation of the categories of monstrous, abject and grotesque in Western cultural imagination have been influenced across time and literary genres. In the novels of Shelley, Carter and Winterson, the monstrous subject is configured as an alternative to the anthropocentric ideal embodied by the normative subject, of which Victor Frankenstein is the paradigmatic exponent. Plus, there are places considered anti-topoi within which the monster acquires a situatedness and claims a voice, generating an opposed counter-narrative to the imaginary conveyed by the normative subject. Monstrosity outlined by Shelley in the novels Frankenstein and The Last Man constitutes the starting point of my research, aiming to observe how the discourse of the normative body vs. the anti-normative body intersects with the discourse of the spaces of the centre vs. the spaces of the margin. In Carter's novels The Passion of New Eve and Nights at the Circus, the monstrous female constitutes the embodiment of wills, desires and claims challenging the heteronormative system. The space of otherness in which Carter's monster-woman is confined becomes a possibility of reshaping identity for the Subject, deconstructing the logic of power that moulded her within society. Finally, Winterson creates two monstrous women in Sexing the Cherry and The Passion who move through urban spaces, going from the centre to the margins and testifying to the arbitrariness of the system and its weaknesses. Similarly, in Frankissstein, Winterson recovers Shelley's original novel and transforms it into a parodic and intertextual speculation on the fluidity of identity and the limits of transhumanism.Tale tesi in Letteratura inglese (European PhD EDGES – Women’s and Gender Studies, XXXIV ciclo) costituisce un'indagine sulla rappresentazione del corpo mostruoso secondo le scrittrici inglesi Mary Shelley, Angela Carter e Jeanette Winterson. Obiettivo del lavoro è osservare attraverso quali modalità la rappresentazione delle categorie di mostruoso, abietto e grottesco nell'immaginario culturale occidentale sia stata influenzata nel tempo e attraverso i generi letterari. Nelle autrici prese in esame, il soggetto mostruoso si configura come alternativa all'ideale antropocentrico incarnato dal soggetto normativo, di cui Victor Frankenstein costituisce il massimo esponente. Allo stesso tempo, sarà possibile osservare come all'interno dei romanzi di Shelley, Carter e Winterson siano presenti luoghi considerati anti-topoi all'interno dei quali il mostro può acquisire un posizionamento e rivendicare una voce, finalizzata a generare una contronarrazione dell'immaginario veicolato dal soggetto normativo. La mostruosità delineata da Shelley in Frankenstein e The Last Man costituisce il punto di partenza dell'indagine, con lo scopo di osservare come il discorso del corpo normativo vs. il corpo antinormativo si intersechi con il discorso degli spazi del centro vs. gli spazi del margine. In The Passion of New Eve e Nights at the Circus di Carter, il mostruoso femminile incarna volontà, desideri e rivendicazioni che mettono in crisi il sistema eteronormativo. Lo spazio dell'alterità in cui la donna-mostro viene confinata diviene possibilità di rimodellamento dell'identità per il soggetto, decostruendo la logica del potere che l'ha plasmato all'interno della società. Winterson, infine, crea due donne mostruose in Sexing the Cherry e The Passion che si muovono negli spazi urbani oscillando tra centro e margine, e testimoniando l'arbitrarietà del sistema e i suoi punti deboli. Allo stesso modo, in Frankissstein Winterson recupera il romanzo di Shelley trasformandolo in una speculazione parodica e intertestuale sulla fluidità identitaria e sui limiti del transumanismo.
Esta tesis doctoral en literatura inglesa (European PhD EDGES - Women's and Gender Studies, Cycle XXXIV) investiga la representación del cuerpo monstruoso según Mary Shelley, Angela Carter y Jeanette Winterson. El objetivo del trabajo es observar cómo haya influido la representación de las categorías de lo monstruoso, lo abyecto y lo grotesco en el imaginario cultural occidental a lo largo del tiempo y a través de los géneros literarios. En las autoras examinadas, el sujeto monstruoso se configura como una alternativa al ideal antropocéntrico encarnado por el sujeto normativo, del que Victor Frankenstein constituye el máximo exponente. Al mismo tiempo en las novelas de Shelley, Carter y Winterson hay lugares considerados anti-topoi dentro de los cuales el monstruo pueda adquirir una posición y reclamar una voz, generando una contranarrativa del imaginario del sujeto normativo. La monstruosidad esbozada por Shelley en Frankenstein y The Last Man constituye el punto de partida de la investigación, observando cómo el discurso del cuerpo normativo y antinormativo se cruza con el discurso sobre los espacios del centro y del margen. En The Passion of New Eve y Nights at the Circus de Carter, la mujer monstruosa encarna voluntades, deseos y reivindicaciones que desafían el sistema heteronormativo. El espacio de alteridad en el que está confinada se convierte en una posibilidad de reconfiguración de la identidad para el sujeto, deconstruyendo la lógica del poder que la ha moldeado dentro de la sociedad. Winterson, por último, crea en Sexing the Cherry y The Passion dos mujeres monstruosas que se mueven en espacios urbanos oscilando entre el centro y el margen, testimoniando la arbitrariedad del sistema y de sus debilidades. Asimismo, en Frankissstein Winterson recupera la novela de Shelley transformándola en una especulación paródica e intertextual sobre la fluidez de la identidad y los límites del transhumanismo.
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Lindmark, Jenny. "Cleaning Away the Bad Stuff : A Comparative Analysis of the Use of Cleaning for Getting Rid of Monstrosity in Dead Until Dark and Shakespeare's Landlord." Thesis, Umeå universitet, Institutionen för språkstudier, 2017. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:umu:diva-135056.
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Abstract This essay is analysing the presence of cleaning and grooming in the novels Shakespeare’s Landlord and Dead Until Dark, both by Charlaine Harris. Against the backdrop of teratology, the essay demonstrates how cleaning and grooming are means for the female protagonists Lily and Sookie to get rid of their inner and outer monstrosities. Their respective monstrosity is defined against the definition of monstrosity by David J. Skal in Monster Theory Seven Theses and the need to get rid of monstrosity is discussed against the theories of Julia Kristeva and Mary Douglas.
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Martín, Alegre Sara. "More human than human: aspects of monstrosity in the films and novels in english of the 1980s and 1990s." Doctoral thesis, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, 1996. http://hdl.handle.net/10803/4915.
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La funció crucial del monstre com a figura de l'Alteritat humana ha trobat expressió cultural des de l'inici de la civilització de manera que els monstres sovint han ocupat una posició central en els diversos períodes culturals del passat. Al final del s. XX, la presència ubiqua del monstre ha esdevingut un dels trets més prominents de la cultura Occidental, en un sentit ampli. Els monstres abunden sobre tot a les novel·les i pel·lícules en anglès dels 80s i 90s. Malgrat això, s'ha parlat de la monstruositat dins els Estudis Culturals en anglès bàsicament en relació a la ficció de terror, sobre tot el cinema. Investigadors com ara Andrew Tudor a Monsters and Mad Scientists (1989), Noël Carroll a The Philosophy of Horror (1990), David Skal a The Monster Show (1993) i Barbara Creed a The Monstrous-Feminine (1993) han escrits anàlisis molt perceptives del monstre en aquest gènere. No hi ha però un discurs a l'abast sobre la monstruositat mateixa, entesa com a una complexa construcció cultural que recull els diversos tipus de monstres i que està present en la majoria de manifestacions culturals més enllà del cinema de terror.Aquesta tesi es proposa començar a omplir aquest buit, començant per qüestionar la idea que la monstruositat es limita a les criatures repulsives del cinema de terror i, en segon lloc, mirant el monstre des d'un punt de vista més ampli que inclogui els dos mitjans més populars de la ficció actual: la novel·la i el cinema. Pel que fa a la monstruositat en si, aquesta tesi deixa de banda una taxonomia tradicional que la limitaria a les llistes d'exemples per obrir un nou territori per l'anàlisi dins els Estudis Culturals en anglès en examinar el conjunt total de les representacions de la monstruositat a la ficció per categories com monstre humà i no-humà, estètic i moral, mític i polític. S'estudia el monstre, doncs, en el context de grans línies narratives que expressen les principals tensions culturals del nostre temps i que justifiquen la divisió en capítols. El monstre de ficció és un símptoma d'aquestes tensions però també part de les estratègies usades per la psicologia humana per guarir-nos de les ferides en la nostra auto-estima causades per la monstruosa realitat de la conducta humana. Els títols originals dels capítols són (la tesi està redactada en anglès): 1 Fascinating Bodies: The New Iconography of Monstrosity; 2 Old Monsters, New Monsters: Vision and Re-Vision From Screen Adaptation to Novelization; 3 Nostalgia for the Monster: Mythical Monsters and Freaks; 4 Evil and Monstrosity: The Moral Monster, 5 The Politics of Monstrosity: The Monsters of Power; 6: Frankenstein's Capitalist Heirs: The Uses of Making Monsters; 7 Gendered Monstrosity: The Monstrous-Feminine and the New Woman Saviour and 8 Little Monsters?: Children and Monsters. Aquesta tesi inclou també una àmplia llista de fonts primàries (novel·les i pel·lícules).
La función crucial del monstruo como figura de la Otredad humana ha hallado expresión cultural desde los inicios de la civilización, de modo que los monstruos a menudo han ocupado una posición central en los diversos períodos culturales del pasado. Al final del s. XX, la presencia ubicua del monstruo se manifiesta como uno de los rasgos más prominentes de la cultura Occidental, en un sentido amplio. Los monstruos abundan sobre todo en las novelas y las películas en inglés de los 80s y 90s. Pese a ello, se ha debatido la monstruosidad dentro de los Estudios Culturales en inglés básicamente en relación a la ficción de terror, sobre todo el cine. Investigadores como Andrew Tudor en Monsters and Mad Scientists (1989), Noël Carroll en The Philosophy of Horror (1990), David Skal en The Monster Show (1993) y Barbara Creed en The Monstrous-Feminine (1993) han escrito análisis muy perceptivos del monstruo en este género. No hay, sin embargo, un discurso sobre la monstruosidad misma, definida como compleja construcción cultural que recoge los diversos tipos de monstruos y que está presente en la mayoría de manifestaciones culturales más allá del cine de terror.
Esta tesis se propone iniciar el llenado de este vacío, empezando por cuestionar la idea de que la monstruosidad se limita a las criaturas repulsivas del cine de terror y, en segundo lugar, observando al monstruo desde un punto de vista más amplio que incluya los dos medios más populares de la ficción actual: la novela y el cine. Sobre la monstruosidad en sí, esta tesis no entra en una taxonomía tradicional, que la limitaría a las listas de ejemplos, para abrir un nuevo territorio de análisis dentro de los Estudios Culturales en inglés al examinar el conjunto total de les representaciones de la monstruosidad en la ficción per categorías tales como monstruo humano i no-humano, estético y moral, mítico y político. Se estudia al monstruo, pues, en el contexto de grandes líneas narrativas que expresan las principales tensiones culturales de nuestro tiempo y que justifican la división en capítulos. El monstruo de ficción es un síntoma de estas tensiones pero también parte de las estrategias usadas por la psicología humana para curarnos las heridas en nuestra auto-estima causadas por la monstruosa realidad de la conducta humana.
Los títulos originales de los capítulos son (la tesis está redactada en inglés): 1 Fascinating Bodies: The New Iconography of Monstrosity; 2 Old Monsters, New Monsters: Vision and Re-Vision From Screen Adaptation to Novelization; 3 Nostalgia for the Monster: Mythical Monsters and Freaks; 4 Evil and Monstrosity: The Moral Monster, 5 The Politics of Monstrosity: The Monsters of Power; 6: Frankenstein's Capitalist Heirs: The Uses of Making Monsters; 7 Gendered Monstrosity: The Monstrous-Feminine and the New Woman Saviour and 8 Little Monsters?: Children and Monsters. Esta tesis incluye una amplia lista de fuentes primarias (novelas y películas).
The crucial function of the monster as mankind's Other has always found an expression in culture since the dawn of civilisation and, so, monstrosity has frequently occupied a central position in the diverse cultural periods of the past. By the end of the twentieth century, the ubiquitous presence of the monster appears to be one of the most conspicuous features of contemporary Western culture in its widest sense. The monster thrives in particular in the novels and films in English of the 1980s and 1990s. Nevertheless, monstrosity has been only discussed within English Cultural Studies mostly in work dealing with horror fiction, especially with the horror film. Researchers such as Andrew Tudor in Monsters and Mad Scientists (1989), Noël Carroll in The Philosophy of Horror (1990), David Skal in The Monster Show (1993) and Barbara Creed in The Monstrous-Feminine (1993) have written perceptive analyses of the monster in that genre. Yet, there is no available discourse on monstrosity itself, understood as a complex cultural construction that gathers together the widely different types of monster and that is present in most contemporary cultural manifestations beyond the domain of horror films.
It is the aim of this dissertation to start filling this gap, beginning first by questioning the idea that monstrosity is represented essentially by the repulsive creatures that can be found in horror films and second, by looking at the monster from a more comprehensive point of view which includes the two most popular vehicles for fiction today: films and novels. Regarding monstrosity itself, this dissertation disregards a traditional classificatory standpoint that would limit analysis to drawing lists of examples. Instead, this dissertation opens new ground for cultural analysis within Cultural Studies by considering together the representations of fictional monstrosity: human and non-human, aesthetic and moral, mythical and political. The monster is, thus, studied within the context of master narratives that express the main cultural tensions in our time and that justify the division into chapters of my dissertation. The fictional monster is a symptom of these tensions but it is also part of the strategies used by the human psyche to heal the wounds inflicted on its self-esteem by the monstrous reality of human behaviour.
The chapters are: 1 Fascinating Bodies: The New Iconography of Monstrosity; 2 Old Monsters, New Monsters: Vision and Re-Vision From Screen Adaptation to Novelization; 3 Nostalgia for the Monster: Mythical Monsters and Freaks; 4 Evil and Monstrosity: The Moral Monster, 5 The Politics of Monstrosity: The Monsters of Power; 6: Frankenstein's Capitalist Heirs: The Uses of Making Monsters; 7 Gendered Monstrosity: The Monstrous-Feminine and the New Woman Saviour and 8 Little Monsters?: Children and Monsters. The dissertation also include an extensive list of primary sources (novels and films).
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Weber, Johannes [Verfasser], Christoph [Akademischer Betreuer] Houswitschka, and Jörn [Akademischer Betreuer] Glasenapp. "“Like some damned Juggernaut” – The proto-filmic monstrosity of late Victorian literary figures / Johannes Weber. Betreuer: Christoph Houswitschka ; Jörn Glasenapp." Bamberg : University of Bamberg Press, 2015. http://d-nb.info/1078503680/34.
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Frangos, Maria. "'The shame of all her kind' : a genealogy of female monstrosity and metamorphosis from the Middle ages through early modernity /." Diss., Digital Dissertations Database. Restricted to UC campuses, 2008. http://uclibs.org/PID/11984.
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Andrade, Arancibia Génesis. "Gazing at the creature, gazing at the monster: an insight into monstrosity in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein; or, the modern prometheus." Tesis, Universidad de Chile, 2015. http://repositorio.uchile.cl/handle/2250/137755.
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Liporagi, Roberta da Fonseca. "Transgressive elements in The Monk: social taboos." Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro, 2010. http://www.bdtd.uerj.br/tde_busca/arquivo.php?codArquivo=2823.
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Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível SuperiorA presente dissertação tem como objetivo mostrar como a literatura gótica pode ser atemporal, subvertendo as mentes e conceitos de seus leitores. Partindo do contexto histórico e cultural em que The Monk se inseriu, esse trabalho visa levantar as questões e elementos tão fortemente reprimidos em nossa sociedade desde o final do século XVIII, como as idéias de mal, abjeção e expressão do eu, em um diálogo permanente com a teoria de Michel Foucault, David Punter, Julia Kristeva, entre outros. Desta forma, a análise do romance se dá paralelamente a uma crítica social, visto que a obra gótica tem por um de seus fins denunciar e deslocar a realidade social. Em última instância, será feita a análise algumas personagens do romance e sua respectiva importância na obra
The objective of the present dissertation is to show how gothic literature can be atemporal, subverting the minds and concepts of the readers. Starting from the historical and cultural context The Monk is inserted, this piece of work attempts to raise the issues and elements so strongly repressed in our society since the end of the 18th century, such as the concepts of evil, abjection and expression of the self, in a continuous dialogue with the theory of Michel Foucault, David Punter, Julia Kristeva, among others. This way, the romance is analysed concomitantly with social criticism, considering that gothic literature aims at denouncing and displacing the social reality. Finally, some characters and their respective relevance in the novel will be analysed
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Stenström, Kristina. "Monsterkroppar : Transformation, transmedialitet och makeoverkultur." Doctoral thesis, Stockholms universitet, Institutionen för mediestudier, 2015. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:su:diva-121562.
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This study offers insights into the motif of monstrous corporality in a transmedia environment, through the vampire and zombie characters. Different narratives of corporeal transformation surround us constantly. On one hand, discourses of self-improvement in late modernity (Giddens 1991/2008) and ‘makeover culture’ (Johansson, 2006; 2012; Miller, 2008; Weber, 2009) demand a ‘creation of self’ through change and development, often in relation to physical appearance and bodily traits. On the other hand, numerous narratives of monstrosity and bodily change through destruction are also evident. This study takes on this double focus on corporality, against the backdrop of a late modern mediascape that has enabled people to imagine lives and possibilities different from their own through electronic mediation (Appadurai, 1996). As narratives now move between media platforms, new dimensions are brought to the imaginary, as different platforms interact differently with audiences. The aim of the study is to examine monstrous corporality in popular culture both in relation to media texts and audience practices through analyzes of representation, consumption and performance. The study examines medial and corporeal transformation through: concrete bodily change (the monstrous body), shifts between media platforms (transmedia) as well as the transmission of affect between media material and viewer (embodied spectatorship). These dimensions are explored in four empirical chapters, which examine two television series (True Blood and The Walking Dead) through textual analyses, the promotion of these series, audience participation (in online fora) and also participatory practices (Live action role play and zombie walks) through focus group interviews. The results indicate that the theme of monstrous corporeal change in TB and TWD reflects corporeal change in late modernity in several ways. Both transformations are focused on ‘before’ and ‘after’ and change of the monstrous body is connected to particular traits or parts of the body, which are also prominent in makeover culture narratives, such as skin, teeth and weight (appetite). The televisual narrative offers representations of bodily interiors and bodily harm that affect the viewers in a physical way, through an embodied spectatorship. The analyses of transmedia environments connected to the series indicate that the promotion of the programs use dimensions that emphasize the corporeal address, by bridging the gap between diegetic and actual reality. This is done through media environments (posters, websites and the like), and by introducing diegetic elements as actual, tangible objects in the actual reality of potential viewers. The analyses of posts on televisionwithoutpity.com show that participants use forum discussions as strategies to prolong and widen the media experience, and share it with others. Interviews with larpers and participants in zombie walks indicate that practices that stage the monstrous, also function as deepened embodied narrative experiences. Performances such as larps and zombie walks are interpreted as both conscious acts, and as strategies to handle unconscious performative (Butler, 1991/2006) dimensions of late modernity. Taken together, the zombie and vampire embody the pressures, risks and paradoxes connected to late modern makeover culture, and the mediated form they are presented through, tie them closer to those who engage in narratives about them.
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Thorp, Jennifer. "Prowling the meanings : Anne Carson's 'Doubtful Forms' and 'The Traitor's Symphony'." Thesis, University of Manchester, 2015. https://www.research.manchester.ac.uk/portal/en/theses/prowling-the-meanings-anne-carsons-doubtful-forms-and-the-traitors-symphony(3e123674-37a8-4fce-bde6-ec9fe3b23201).html.
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This thesis uses four works by the contemporary Canadian poet Anne Carson (born 1950) to argue that it is in the embracing of failure and difficulty that modern poetics may negotiate formal erosion and the limits of language. The introduction addresses Carson’s divisive reputation, and uses two separate criticisms of her poetic skill to delineate her liminal position in the modern poetic landscape, and therefore demonstrate her potential as a valuable framework for discussing innovative form. Via an examination of the criticisms of Robert Potts and David Solway, I argue that Carson is neither high priestess of postmodernism nor a collagist of poorly produced forms. This illuminates two points: one, that she occupies a space outside several modern ideologies of poetic authenticity, expression and form, and two, that this position can be effectively used to interrogate those ideologies and investigate new possibilities for poetic creativity. In Chapter 1, Nox, Carson’s elegy for her brother Michael, is argued to experiment with traditional elegy form – but not in a mode that wholly follows Jahan Ramazani’s famous framing of 20th century elegy form as traumatically fractured. Nox is shown not to be merely subversive, but also interrogative of its own formal tradition, embracing the inherent contradiction within elegy: that absence could be rendered as presence, that a living, flawed language could make the dead speak. From this contradiction, I argue, Nox creates a solution: it occupies a position of formal non-forming, a return to the state of poesis, refusing to emerge as a completed poem or retreat into fragmentation but instead occupying a liminal space of continual creation. In the second chapter, this preoccupation with elegy’s paradox is shown to be part of a greater theme within Carson’s work. The failures of language in Carson are elucidated with reference to the sceptical 19th-century theorist Fritz Mauthner. Mauthner is argued to be the best theorist for the thesis’s framework because of his belief in the possibilities of language’s resurrection as a valid communicative medium. Through three texts, “By Chance The Cycladic People”, The Glass Essay and Just For The Thrill, Carson’s interrogation of this hope is shown to produce creativity from difficulty, creating monstrous form-combinations to render the silence beyond language’s limits as poetically productive. Carson’s texts, in their struggle with failure and their obsessive doubt, can be used to construct several means of negotiating the limits of form and the inherent fallibility of language. The conflict between the drive for authentic expression and the perceived failure of expressive mediums is one of the defining features of both Carson’s work and modern poetry in general. However, it is by inhabiting and challenging the fraught areas at the edge of meaning that poetry of the 21st century can, in the words of Carson’s influence Samuel Beckett, try again, fail again, fail better. Synopsis: The Traitor’s Symphony is an experimental novel in three voices, set in an unspecified totalitarian state known only as the Regime at some point in the twentieth century. It follows the career of David, a young composer who rises from tortured outcast to celebrated Regime talent through scheming, moral ambiguity, and a deal with the Professor, a translator and populist radio pundit. David trades the sexual attentions of Dion, a beautiful but brain-damaged boy, for the Professor’s help in rising through the ranks of the Regime’s musical system. The voices of the Professor and his doctor wife Anne, who have just lost their newborn son, alternate with David’s as the bargain binds them together in disaster. The narrative is inspired by the lives of collaborationist composers in various 20th century states, including Dmitri Shostakovich and Carl Orff, but is not focussed on any one figure. Instead, it takes various elements of their experience - the state apparatus of approval, the minute observation of ‘doctrine’ in musical content, and the humiliation and blacklisting of composers who did not produce acceptable content - as the starting point for a narrative exploring the complex relationship between art, artists and the modern totalitarian state. Research in this area was shaped by Alex Ross’s The Rest Is Noise: listening to the twentieth century (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007) and the work of Michael Kater, most notably Composers of the Nazi era: eight portraits (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), and supplemented by archival work in the Stasimuseum and Bundesbeauftragten in Berlin. More broadly, the novel focusses on the difficulties of grief, love and survival in totalitarian environments. Its setting, the Regime, was created by combining elements of daily life under the Stalinist Terror, The Democratic Republic Of North Korea, and Nazi and Stasi Germany, drawing on sources including Anna Akhmatova’s poetry and Chol-Hwan Kang’s The Aquariums Of Pyongyang (New York: Basic Books, 2001). The Regime’s embedded paranoia, hyper-vigilance, rigorous propaganda, regulated femininity, cult-like leader worship and brutal reprisal for non-conforming citizens are constructed from these historical precedents. Each of the three voices is stylised as a poetic form, as a method of expressing the repression of the individual and the culture of fear in the Regime’s system. This formal dimension draws on modernist literature in its use of language as expression of identity, but also on Wittgensteinian doubt that true communication could ever exist between such personal webs of meaning. Both David and Anne must actively suppress their private pain, he the agony of torture and burden of being labelled a traitor, she the disorienting grief of her son’s death and the loss of her husband’s love. Their inner emotional states are reflected in the forms of their vocals: David’s fractured voice, with its distressed percussive rhythm, is the voice of a musician physically and mentally smashed, while Anne’s blank, frantic segments express the dislocation of her foreignness and the gulf that grief has created in her marriage. The Professor, in contrast, begins the novel in supreme command of language, with brief breaks into sensual chaos as the only manifestation of his hidden mourning. The vocal shifts reflect and form the narrative progression.
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Soares, Janile Pequeno. "Frankenstein e a monstruosidade das intenções: a criatura como representação da condição feminina." Universidade Federal da Paraíba, 2015. http://tede.biblioteca.ufpb.br:8080/handle/tede/8296.
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This research has as objective to analyze Frankenstein (1818), written by the English writer Mary Shelley (1797-1851), from a perspective of the concept of monstrosity allied to the feminist criticism, based on Gilmore (2003), Cawson (1995), Fay (1998), Gilbert & Gubar (1984), among others. Published in 1818, Frankenstein remains attractive, among other points, due to the social critic that its lines transpires when decentralizes the narrative motif out of haunted castles, family curses and ghosts that torments the characters, as the English traditional gothic novels did. Frankenstein begins a new period of the gothic novels centering the focus on the psychological limits of its characters; exploring the monstrosities from the attitudes and intentionality as a reflex of the society from the historical period that the novel is product. The fiction of Mary Shelley overflows the feminine experience originated from the contact with a society haunted for the masculine domination. Thus, our analysis is centered on the otherness of Victor Frankenstein‘s Creature as a representation for the feminine condition of its time.
Esta pesquisa tem por objetivo analisar Frankenstein (1818), da escritora inglesa Mary Shelley (1797-1851), sob uma perspectiva do conceito de monstruosidade aliada à crítica feminista, tomando como base os estudos de Gilmore (2003), Cawson (1995), Fay (1998), Gilbert e Gubar (1984), dentre outros. Publicado em 1818, Frankenstein permanece atraente, entre tantos pontos, pela crítica social que suas linhas transpiram ao decentralizar o foco da narrativa de castelos assombrados, maldições de família e fantasmas que atormentam os personagens, como havia se solidificado os romances góticos ingleses. Frankenstein inaugura uma nova fase do gótico de romances centrado nos limites psicológicos de seus personagens; explora as monstruosidades das atitudes e das intencionalidades como reflexo da sociedade do período do qual o romance é produto. A ficção de Shelley transborda a experiência feminina advinda do contato com uma sociedade assombrada pela dominação masculina. Assim, nossa análise está centrada na construção da alteridade da Criatura de Victor Frankenstein como representação da condição feminina da época em o romance foi escrito.
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Candiotto, Bruno Ferres. "Monstr.: entre monstros e aparelhos." Universidade Presbiteriana Mackenzie, 2014. http://tede.mackenzie.br/jspui/handle/tede/1916.
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MONSTR. BETWEEN MONSTERS AND APPARATUS is a theoretical and practical, literary, essayistic and imagery experiment based on applying an artistic operator: monstr. . Through this operator the text of the thesis was constructed proposing a self-questioning of the principles that govern the form of a dissertation in which images and words interacts without hierarchy. What emerges in the dissertation as "monstr." refers to the mode of appointing the creation process, while this process happens considering the strangeness of the act of creation, when creation is actually an interdiction of the creation itself. A radical investment in interdisciplinary dissertation led to the effect of this methodological application. Important authors of the theoretical scenario were used in the process we call "monstrification". Among them fundamentally i quote from Vilém Flusser. He and others served not as authority, but as partners who enter into a dialogue under the proposed methodology. A glossary was built to explain the terms of the text. This glossary aims at bringing the reader closer of the epistemology "monstr." which was used throughout the dissertation extending the theoretical horizons of the reader. The images produced by the "manipulation" of photographs, aims at not to illustrate the text, but to enable a dialogue with it. It suggests a dive in the deep water; a sensory and abysmal depths. All photographs displayed here are nothing more than self-portraits produced by the artistic operator, which exposes them through an admittedly nonlinear aesthetic, emphasizing hybrid characteristics and unusual "plurality" of himself. Actually these photographs have been manipulated and were set to "manipulate" and to be manipulated, causing reflections not only about the "visual" but also about the "sensory" and the myriad of possibilities that this dialectic allows.
MONSTR. ENTRE MONSTROS E APARELHOS é um experimento teórico e prático, literário, ensaístico e imagético baseado na aplicação de um operador artístico: monstr. . Por meio desse operador construiu-se o texto da dissertação proposto como autoquestionamento dos próprios princípios que regem a forma de uma dissertação em que a imagem e a palavra interagem sem hierarquia. Aquilo que na dissertação surge como monstr. refere-se ao modo de nomear o processo de criação, enquanto esse processo se dá tendo em vista a estranheza do próprio ato de criar quando a criação é, na verdade, interdição da própria criação. Um investimento radical na interdisciplinaridade provocou a dissertação como efeito dessa aplicação metodológica. Autores importantes do cenário teórico foram usados dentro do processo que chamamos aqui de monstrificação . Entre eles cito fundamentalmente Vilém Flusser. Ele e outros servem não como autoridade, mas como parceiros que entram em diálogo nos termos da metodologia proposta. Um glossário foi construído para explicitar os termos do texto, esse glossário visa aproximar o leitor da epistemologia monstr. que foi usada ao longo da dissertação ampliando os horizontes teóricos do leitor. As imagens produzidas por manipulação de imagens, fotografias, visam não a ilustração do texto, mas um diálogo com ele. Sugerem um mergulho em águas profundas; profundeza sensorial e abismal. Todas as fotografias aqui expostas nada mais são do que auto-retratos produzidas pelo operador artístico, que as expõe por meio de um estética assumidamente não linear, enfatizando características híbridas e pluralidade incomum, próprias de si mesmo. Tratam-se na verdade de imagens manipuladas, programadas para manipularem por meio delas mesmas, e que permitem serem manipuladas, provocando reflexões não somente acerca do visual , mas também do sensorial e da miríade de possibilidades que essa dialética permite.
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Lemon, Kiersty. "The Infectious Monster: Borders and Contagion in Yeti and Lágrimas en la lluvia." BYU ScholarsArchive, 2015. https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/etd/5734.
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Monsters are disruptive characters, who cross boundaries and blend categories. They come in various kinds: Non-human monsters, such as Dracula, created-by-human monsters like Frankenstein, human monsters like Hitler, and more-than-human monsters such as the X-men. These monsters can either be dangerous or helpful to humanity. Dangerous monsters appear as infectious, viral forces, while helpful monsters are inoculative forces for positive change. In either case, they penetrate the borders set up between normatively separate categories. Critics and authors have long realized the connection between heroes and monsters, often portraying them as necessary to one another, as two sides of a single coin. However, this analogy is lacking, because it does not allow for the possibility that a single character can display varying degrees of both heroism and monstrosity. Mario Yerro and Bruna Husky present such characteristics in Yeti and Lágrimas en la lluvia, as evidenced by their physical appearance, their relations to scapegoats, the porosity of species and other boundaries, and the decisions they make in regards to the Other.
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Caparroy, Jean-François. "Soi-même comme un monstre pour demeurer un territoire inconnu. Complexité linguistique et clandestinité dans la poésie francophone de Louisiane à la fin du XXème siècle." Thesis, Paris 4, 2012. http://www.theses.fr/2012PA040023.
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Pourquoi Jean Arceneaux, Deborah Clifton et David Cheramie – trois poètes francophones louisianais – font-ils le choix de se représenter sous les traits du monstre dans leur poésie ? L’étude comparée des recueils Cris sur le bayou, Suite du loup, A cette heure la louve et Lait à mère met en évidence l’existence d’un espace intertextuel, métaphorisé par les poètes eux mêmes sous les traits du « pays des loups », où les errances de leurs doubles poétiques dessinent les fondations d’un nouveau mythe américain.Dédoublement et enchâssement des différents alter ego de l’auteur en un processus poétique de « schizophrénie linguistique », projection de soi dans une figure monstrueuse à des fins de recolonisation d’un espace textuel devenu non-lieu poétique puis corps de substitution du poète, jeu carnavalesque où le texte devenu palimpseste figure une superposition de masques trahissant l’existence d’un monde littéraire caché, esthétique du louvoiement et prolifération d’une monstruosité formelle, tels sont les artéfacts poétiques mis en place par nos auteurs dans un jeu de stratégie du dire. Fidèles à une forme de pensée clandestine, les recueils donnent ainsi libre cours à une inversion des valeurs sociales, esthétiques et linguistiques, laissant le vide et le silence d’une condition d’aliéné devenir les matériaux d’une entreprise d’exploration mnésique à des fins de réhabilitation du soi.Se définissant dans cette difformité inscrite au cœur du texte, nos poètes semblent avoir réinventé et reconquis une langue française au potentiel performatif décuplé, faisant de cet Autre anglophone redouté, le complice médusé d’un rituel poétique de déconstruction et d’auto-gestationWhy do Jean Arceneaux, Deborah Clifton and David Cheramie – three francophone poets from Louisiana – choose to represent themselves as the monster in their poetry? The comparative study of their works Cris sur le bayou, Suite du loup, A cette heure, la louve and Lait à mère reveals the existence of a special location in between their different texts the poets themselves imagine as " the wolves' country ", where the wanderings of their poetical doubles draw the bases of a new American myth.The splitting and setting of the different alter ego of the writer in a poetical process of " linguistic schizophrenia ", the throwing of one’s own picture as a monstrous figure in order to recolonize a textual space turned into a poetical non-place before becoming a substitute body for the poet, the carnivalesque game in which the text now a palimpsest represents a superposition of masks that betrays the existence of a hidden literary world, the aesthetic of the wolf-like gait and the proliferation of a formal monstrosity, these are the poetical artifacts used by our writers in a strategy game to express themselves. Thus, keeping to a form of secret thought, their works present inverted social, aesthetic and linguistic values, allowing the emptiness and silent specific to alienation to become the materials to set out for an amnesic exploration in order to rehabilitate one’s own self.As they define themselves by this deformity written down in the texts, our poets seem to have invented and conquered again a French language ten times more powerful that makes of the “Other one” the anglophone they fear, the dumbfounded accomplice of a poetical ritual of deconstruction and self-gestation
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Christensen, Michelle Rae. "MONSTROUS FUTURES: QUEER-POSTHUMANITY IN TELEVISED HORROR." Miami University / OhioLINK, 2016. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=miami1470441501.
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Demangeot, Fabien. "La transgression dans l'œuvre de David Cronenberg." Thesis, Paris 1, 2018. http://www.theses.fr/2018PA01H302/document.
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Totalement érigée autour de la question de la transgression, l'œuvre cronenbergienne, en exposant des comportements considérés comme déviants ainsi que des modes de sexualités allant à l'encontre des modèles normatifs propres à la culture mainstream, semble difficilement catégorisable. À la fois à l'intérieur et à l'extérieur du système hollywoodien, le réalisateur de La Mouche joue avec les codes génériques les plus éculés pour en proposer une véritable alternative. De ses débuts dans le cinéma underground, avec des œuvres telles que Stereo et Crimes of the future, à ses films les plus ''grand public'', comme A History of Violence et Les Promesses de l'ombre, le cinéaste a toujours mis à mal les horizons d'attentes de ses spectateurs. La transgression, chez Cronenberg, ne se résume cependant pas à la seule représentation de la violence et de la sexualité. Elle est un élément structurel majeur qui lui permet de garder une certaine singularité tout en évitant la redite. Comme nous le verrons, tout au long de cette étude, David Cronenberg, bien qu'il se soit progressivement détaché du genre du ''body horror'', s'est toujours intéressé aux mêmes thématiques que celles-ci touchent le corps, l'esprit, la famille ou encore la science. En allant jusqu'à adapter des œuvres littéraires jugées inadaptables (Le Festin Nu, Crash et Cosmopolis), le cinéaste a également exposé son désir d'abolir les frontières entre les arts. Mêlant ses obsessions personnelles à celles d'autres artistes, Cronenberg confère à son œuvre un caractère hybride que viennent métaphoriser les innombrables corps mutants qui peuplent ses films. Cette étude sera structurée autour des quatre grandes formes de transgression constitutives de son œuvre : la morale, le corps, le réel et le cinéma. Il s'agira de montrer que la transgression, loin d'être un simple artifice, est la composante essentielle d'une œuvre qui n'a jamais cessé de se déconstruire pour mieux se réinventerEntirely built around the issue of transgression, Cronenberg's work, by exposing behaviors considered as deviant, as well as modes of sexuality going against normative models proper to mainstream culture, seems difficult to categorize. Both inside and outside the Hollywood system, the director of The Fly plays with the most hackneyed generic codes to offer a real alternative. From his beginnings in underground cinema, with works such as Stereo and Crimes of the Future, to his most 'mainstream' films, such as Eastern Promises, the filmmaker has always diverted the expectations of its spectators. However, Cronenberg's transgression is not just about portraying violence and sexuality, it is also a major structural element that allows it to keep a certain singularity while avoiding repetition. Although, David Cronenberg gradually detached himself from the genre of "body horror", as we will see throughout this study, he has always been interested in the same themes that affect the body, mind, family or even science. By going so far as to adapt literary works deemed unadaptable (Naked Lunch, Crash and Cosmopolis), the filmmaker also exposed his desire to abolish the boundaries between the arts. Cronenberg gives his work a hybrid character that metaphorize the innumerable mutant bodies that populate his films by mixing his personal obsessions with those of other artists. This study will be structured around the four major forms of transgression that constitute his work: morality, body, reality and cinema. It will be necessary to show that the transgression, far from being a mere artifice, is the essential component of a work that has never ceased to be deconstructed to better reinvent itself
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Porter, Whitney. "Monstrous Reproduction: The Power of the Monstered Maternal in Graphic Form." Kent State University / OhioLINK, 2017. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=kent1493050047052178.
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Uto, Akiko. "La laideur et la difformité physiques dans la littérature et la société grecques des cinquième et quatrième siècles avant Jésus-Christ." Thesis, Paris 4, 2011. http://www.theses.fr/2011PA040111.
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Le monde grec antique nous a transmis l'image d'une civilisation imprégnée de beauté à travers ses œuvres artistiques, cette image étant renforcée par la richesse et la qualité de ses productions littéraires. La quête de la beauté suprême atteint son apogée durant la période classique, et dans ce contexte où tout semble tendre vers cet idéal, la laideur d'apparence est très peu évocatrice; les quelques personnages grecs laids ou difformes auxquels nous pouvons penser, Thersite, Socrate ou Héphaïstos, semblent constituer la minorité d'exceptions qui confirme la règle tellement ils sont présentés comme des cas à part. Cette image que nous avons des Grecs est évidemment trompeuse: les maladies, les difformités et les différentes formes de laideur devaient naturellement faire partie de leur vie quotidienne. Travailler sur ce sujet encore peu exploré nous a paru fort intéressant; pour tenter de saisir ce que les Grecs eux-mêmes ont peu exprimé, nous avons couvert le plus d'aspects possibles en ayant recours à l'ensemble des textes de la période classique sans oublier l'iconographie, indispensable pour une étude sur l'esthétiqueThe ancient Greek world passed on to us the image of a civilization filled with beauty through its artistic works, this image being strengthened by the richness and quality of its literary productions. The quest for supreme beauty reached its peak during the classical period, and in this context where everything seems to tend towards this ideal, physical ugliness is not something we generally equate with Greek thought; a few ugly or deformed Greek characters of whom we can think, Thersite, Socrates or Hephæstus, are so isolated that they seem to be the exception rather than the rule. Thus, this image is clearly incorrect since sickness, deformity, and other kinds of ugliness were natural parts of their lives. This little investigated subject is full of interest to us. In our efforts to seize what the Greeks themselves failed to express, we covered every relevent aspect possible by using all the texts of the classical period, not leaving the iconography behind, which is indispensable for a study on aesthetics
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Nyberg, Forshage Andria. "On Sublimity and the Excessive Object in Trans Women's Contemporary Writing." Thesis, Södertörns högskola, Institutionen för kultur och lärande, 2015. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:sh:diva-30337.
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This thesis examines trans women's contemporary writing in relation to a theory of the excessive object, sublimity, transmisogyny and minor literature. In doing so, this text is influenced by Susan Stryker's work on monstrosity, abjection and transgender rage in the article “My Words to Victor Frankenstein Above the Village of Chamounix: Performing Transgender Rage” (1994). The excessive object refers to a concept coined in this thesis to describe sublimity from another perspective than that of the tradition following from Immanuel Kant's A Critique of Judgment, building on feminist scholarship on the aesthetic of the sublime. Of particular relevance are critiques of the patriarchal dynamics of sublimity and the idea of the feminine sublime as it is explored with reference to literature by Barbara Freeman in The Feminine Sublime: Gender and Excess in Women's Fiction (1995). Following from the feminist critique of sublimity, trans women's writing is explored as minor literature through a re-reading of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari's work on Franz Kafka in Kafka. Toward a Minor Literature (1986), with attention to the importance that conditions of impossibility, marginality and unintelligibility holds for the political possibilities of minor literature. These readings form the basis for an analysis of four literary texts by two contemporary authors, Elena Rose, also known as little light, and Sybil Lamb, in addition to a deeper re-engagement with Stryker's work. In so doing, this thesis also touches on topics of power, erasure, trauma, self-sacrifice, appropriation and unrepresentability.
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Zumpano, Coacci Julián. "Monstruosidad, otredad y proceso de humanización en las reelaboraciones del minotauro de Borges y Cortázar : Un estudio comparativo de las obras “La casa de Asterión” y Los reyes." Thesis, Stockholms universitet, Romanska och klassiska institutionen, 2019. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:su:diva-169964.
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El objetivo general de nuestro trabajo pasa por ocuparse de la figura del minotauro en las reelaboraciones propuestas por Borges, con su cuento “La casa de Asterión”, y por Cortázar, con su pieza teatral Los reyes, en relación a los conceptos de monstruosidad y otredad y a la ética del humanismo del otro hombre presentada por Levinas. Se trata de un estudio comparativo en donde se analizará tanto el mito clásico del minotauro como también estas dos versiones surgidas al sur del continente americano. Las preguntas de investigación apuntan, por un lado, al interés por los géneros literarios escogidos por los autores argentinos en cuanto condición de posibilidad para la creación de sus minotauros humanizados. Por el otro, a la posición marginal a la que, en principio, la otredad monstruosa queda relegada. Por último, a la inversión producida con sus refinadísimas construcciones estéticas, en las cuales el minotauro es reconocido y en donde creemos ver un llamado de atención a la sociedad para hacerse responsable de los monstruos que crea.The principal objective of this research is to investigate the minotaur´s portrait in the reinterpretations proposed by Borges, in his short story entitled “The House of Asterion”, and by Cortázar, in his play The Kings. The comparison is made in relation to the concepts of monstrosity and otherness and the ethics of humanism of the Other presented by Levinas. This is a comparative study that aims to analyze the classical myth of the minotaur and the two versions that emerged simultaneously in South America. The research questions refer, first, to the interest in the literary genres chosen by the Argentinian authors that prepare the ground for the creation of humanized minotaurs. Second, to the marginal position to which the monster is relegated. Finally, to the inversion produced in their aesthetic constructions, where the minotaur is recognized and would later becomea wake-up call to society to take responsibility for the monsters it creates.
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Silva, Gisélia Mendes da. "Representações do corpo estranho na ficção de Antônio Carlos Viana." Universidade Federal de Sergipe, 2011. https://ri.ufs.br/handle/riufs/5798.
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This research aims to investigate the role of the strange in the fiction of the short story writer Antônio Carlos Viana from Sergipe in the written works O meio do mundo e outros contos (1999), Aberto está o inferno (2004) and Cine privê (2009). These collections bring a set of strange beings to the family and the patriarchal society. The stranger in the fiction of Viana unbalances the rigorous standards of absolute truth and challenges the dead posture that leads people to live by the roots of a molded patriarchal system that, while outdated, is still adjusting behaviors. As theoretical and methodological subsidies, we used reflections of gender, body, sexuality and monstrosity studies. We go from the concept of strange as the one who has no definitions, rethinks the power and poisons the set standards, proposed by Zygmunt Bauman, Michel Foucault and Jacques Derrida; as the one who challenges and destabilizes the rules laid down as Guacira Louro, Elodia Xavier and Elizabeth Grosz, and finally as a metaphor of evil, proposed by Luiz Nazario, Jerome Cohen and Julio Jeha. We divide this essay into three chapters: in the first, Corpos marcados, we do a study of the strange of gender and analyze the stories O amor de Isa e Nane , Maria filha de Maria from the work Cine privê and Doutora Eva from Aberto está o inferno; the second, Do corpo à sexualidade, we rethink the no place of people that are broken down by sexual orientation and analyze the stories Eliazar, Eliazar , from Cine privê, Os mestres , Jardins suspensos and Meu tio tão só from O meio do mundo e outros contos; in the third, Monstruosidade nos corpos, we investigate the short stories Nadinha , Aos domingos from O meio do mundo e outros contos e Lofote e sua mãe from Aberto está o inferno. Of possession of such fictional material and theorical contributions, we seek to establish dialogue between the literary and social discourses and propose a space for debate in which social issues may be validated in the space of irreverent literary aesthetics.Esta pesquisa tem como objetivo central investigar as representações do corpo estranho na ficção do contista sergipano Antônio Carlos Viana nas obras O meio do mundo e outros contos (1999), Aberto está o inferno (2004) e Cine privê (2009). Essas coletâneas trazem um conjunto de seres estranhos para a família e para a sociedade patriarcal. O estranho na ficção de Viana desequilibra os rigorosos padrões de verdade absoluta e contesta a postura inoperante que leva pessoas a viverem moldadas pelas raízes de um sistema patriarcal que, embora ultrapassado, continua regulando comportamentos. Como subsídio teórico-metodológico, utilizamos reflexões dos estudos de gênero, do corpo, do duplo, da sexualidade e da monstruosidade. Partimos do conceito de corpo estranho como aquele que é familiar, não possui definições, repensa o poder e envenena os padrões estabelecidos, proposto por Zygmunt Bauman, Michel Foucault e Jacques Derrida; como aquele que contesta e desestabiliza as normas instituídas, conforme Guacira Louro, Elódia Xavier e Elizabeth Grosz e, por fim, como metáfora do mal, proposto por Luiz Nazário, Jerome Cohen e Julio Jeha. Dividimos esta dissertação em três capítulos: no primeiro, Corpos marcados, fazemos um estudo dos estranhos de gênero e analisamos os contos O amor de Isa e Nane , Maria filha de Maria da obra Cine privê e Doutora Eva de Aberto está o inferno; no segundo, Do corpo à sexualidade, repensamos o não lugar das pessoas que são discriminadas pela opção sexual e analisamos os contos Eliazar, Eliazar , de Cine privê, Os mestres , Jardins suspensos e Meu tio tão só de O meio do mundo e outros contos; no terceiro, Monstruosidade nos corpos, investigamos os contos Nadinha , Aos domingos de O meio do mundo e outros contos e Lofote e sua mãe de Aberto está o inferno. De posse desse material ficcional e a partir das contribuições teóricas, procuramos estabelecer diálogos entre os discursos literários e sociais e propor um espaço de debates em que as questões sociais possam ser validadas no irreverente espaço da estética literária.
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Oskarson, Kindstrand Gro. "Lovecrafts kvinnor : En undersökning av kvinnlig monstrositet i Howard Phillips Lovecrafts litteratur." Thesis, Södertörns högskola, Institutionen för kultur och lärande, 2014. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:sh:diva-27366.
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While the strategy of lending a voice to the monstrous is a well known aspect of Howard Phillips Lovecraft's works, the female monster is a notable exception to this case. In this thesis, I excavate a theory of female monstrosity through a reading of some of Lovecraft's most read stories and the agency of female characters that appears within. Comparing these female registers of monstrosity to their masculine counterpart, I develop a concept of female monstrosity manifested through categories of class, race and gender with the help of Judith Halberstams theories of monstrosity. Rather than treating these women as active characters, I argue that Lovecraft's inability to handle these monsters forces him to literally put them away – in attics, cellars, or boxes. These are the marginalized positions from which these women elaborate a monstrous form that transcends the boundaries of sex, gender, class and race. Here lurks a female monster, powerful, independent and evil, Lovecraft's treatment of which reveals his fear of its unfettered emergence. Thus Lovecraft’s narrative technique is broken by his own creation. Indeed, these women, in their reproductive capabilities and the monstrous motherhood they represent, are the true monsters of the Lovecraftian universe.
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Silva, Gerson Lourenço da. "O jogo poético nas Sete Cabeças de Eucanaã Ferraz: beleza e monstruosidade." Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo, 2012. https://tede2.pucsp.br/handle/handle/14697.
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Previous issue date: 2012-05-22This research analyzes some poems of the work Seven-headed Monster and Other Fantastic Beings (Bicho de Sete Cabeças e Outros Seres Fantásticos), by the Brazilian poet Eucanaã Ferraz. The main question is to verify the presence of game features in the infantile poetry, taking into consideration the postulates defended by Huizinga, especially with regard to the role of the game in the poetic process. Games, as well as poetry, involve the faculty of invention, creation, competition, imagination, tension and seriousness. The poem is built by elements that attract and repel each other, and it is in these inconstancies that the beauty of poetry is: the tension and distension. We sought to understand how the process of construction and deconstruction of the monstrosity occurs in some eucanaanian poems through the poetic game. The theoretical support of the research has relied primarily on studies of poetic language and its specificities, as well as critical studies about children's literature in authors such as: Nelly Novaes Coelho, Decio Pignatari, Octavio Paz, Ezra Pound, Paul Valery and others. For the purpose of contextualization, of the infantile poetry in Brazil, a brief historical view was prepared from its inception to present day. The eighteen selected poems were divided and analyzed into two groups, organized from two nuclear axes: one that turns to the binary-various movement inscribed by the conjugation, in the poems, of two beings into one and, another that focuses on the reconstruction of monsters, giants and legendary creatures, commonly associated to horror, through softness and lightness. Ferraz shows, in his poetic creation, especially in the book Seven-headed Monster and Other Fantastic Beings, a series of legendary, mythological and folkloric references of the universal culture, making the distant near, the strange familiar, the heavy light, rudeness beautiful, harmonizing beings or things of different universes. It is the antithetical game of the binary-various , in a hybrid dimension of attraction and repulsion, which becomes present in the analyzed poems
O presente trabalho analisa alguns poemas da obra Bicho de Sete Cabeças e Outros Seres Fantásticos, do poeta brasileiro Eucanaã Ferraz. A questão norteadora é constatar a presença de características do jogo na poesia infantil, considerando-se, para tanto, os postulados defendidos por Huizinga, sobretudo no que se refere à função do jogo no fazer poético. O jogo, assim como a poesia, envolvem a faculdade de invenção, criação, competição, imaginação, tensão e seriedade. O poema se constrói por elementos que se atraem e outros que se repelem, e é nessas inconstâncias que está a beleza da poesia: a tensão e a distensão. Buscou-se compreender como ocorre o processo de construção e desconstrução da monstruosidade em alguns poemas eucanaanianos, por meio do jogo poético. O suporte teórico da pesquisa apoiou-se, basicamente, em estudos relativos à linguagem poética e suas especificidades, além de estudos críticos acerca da literatura infantil, em autores como: Nelly Novaes Coelho, Décio Pignatari, Octavio Paz, Ezra Pound, Paul Valéry e outros. Para fins de contextualização da poesia infantil no Brasil, foi elaborado um breve panorama histórico, desde seu início até os dias atuais. Os dezoito poemas selecionados foram divididos e analisados em dois grupos organizados a partir de dois eixos nucleares: um que se volta para o movimento binário-vário inscrito pela conjugação, nos poemas, de dois seres em um, e outro que focaliza a reconstrução de monstros, gigantes e seres lendários, comumente associados ao horror, por meio da suavidade e leveza. Ferraz apresenta, em sua criação poética, especialmente no livro Bicho de sete cabeças e outros seres fantásticos, uma série de referências lendárias, mitológicas e folclóricas da cultura universal, tornando próximo o distante, familiar o estranho, leve o pesado, belo o rude, harmonizando seres ou coisas de universos distintos. É o jogo antitético do binário-vário , numa dimensão híbrida de atração e repulsão, que se presentifica nos poemas analisados
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Soukaï, Caroline. "De l’insularité en tant que mode de décryptage : Patrick Chamoiseau, Ananda Devi, V. S. Naipaul." Thesis, Paris 4, 2017. http://www.theses.fr/2017PA040208.
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Les littératures caribéennes et océano-indiennes des dernières décennies ont mis en lumière, par le trajet poétique, l’ambivalence inhérente à la circonscription de la réalité géographique insulaire qui permet d’accéder à la conscience îlienne. L’insularité s’impose alors comme le motif contenant le lancinement géographique mais également mémoriel. Lieu duquel surgit l’imaginaire, l’île est instaurée en tant que terreau commun des textes de Patrick Chamoiseau, Ananda Devi, V. S. Naipaul qui, à travers le déploiement poétique, exhibent le tiraillement de l’ancrage et de la fuite, de l’enfermement et de l’ouverture. Ainsi, dans une approche diachronique, le dessein est de saisir l’inscription de cet élément fondateur de la poésie et de sa praxis afin d’entendre le dépassement initié par ces poétiques de la Mondialité, concept-clé de la philosophie poétique d’Édouard Glissant. L’édifice de Glissant irrigue, en effet, les textes, tantôt dans la résonance avec l’oeuvre de Naipaul, tantôt par le legs perceptible dans celles de Chamoiseau et de Devi. La poétique de la Relation constitue alors l’arsenal exégétique qui permet d’accéder aux propositions de contemporanéité des auteurs. Le traitement de la malemort, la fondation de l’ouvrage total, la praxis poétique de la monstruosité désaliénant le corps protéiforme, sont alors les imprévisibles générés. La création tend ainsi à s’affranchir des catégorisations et assignations, car elle est un écho au mouvement du mondeThe Caribbean and Indian Ocean literatures of the last few decades has brought to light, through its poetic journey, the inherent ambivalence of the circumscription of island geographical reality, which allows access to the island consciousness. Insularity appears as the metaphor of a chronic pain caused by the torn between geographical and memory issues. The island, the place from which the imaginary emerges, is established as a common breeding ground for the texts of Patrick Chamoiseau, Ananda Devi and V. S. Naipaul who, through their poetic process, show the conflict of anchoring and escape, of confinement and openness. Thus in a diachronic approach, the aim is to grasp the inscription of this founding element of poetry and its praxis in order to hear the overtake initiated by these poetics of Mondialité, a key concept of Edouard Glissant's poetic philosophy. Glissant’s work echoes with Naipaul’s writing, as they are contemporaries, while Chamoiseau and Devi have inherited of Glissant’s poetic and philosophical thought. Then, the poetics of the Relation constitutes the exegetical arsenal that allows access to the authors'propositions of contemporaneity. The description of the malemort, the creating process of a memorial masterpiece, the poetic praxis of the monstrosity which release the body (physical, social, and literature), are the « unpredictable » generated. Creation thus tends to free itself from categorizations and assignments, because it is an echo of the movement of the world
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Awele, Emmanuel Chukwudi. "Globalization and slow violence : slow genocide at the periphery in Jeannette Armstrong’s Whispering in shadows and Kaine Agary’s Yellow-Yellow." Mémoire, Université de Sherbrooke, 2015. http://hdl.handle.net/11143/6850.
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Abstract : The work that follows analyses the environmental, cultural, economic and rhetorical methods of conceptualizing violence affecting traditional Niger-Deltan and pan-Indigenous peoples. Whispering in Shadows by Jeanette Armstrong and Yellow-Yellow by Kaine Agary represent how Okanagan and other pan-Indigenous peoples of the Americas and Niger Deltans experience contemporary forms of slow genocide as a result of environmental pollution and various forms of displacement from ancestral spaces. This analysis of both texts brings to the fore the Indigenous sense of life, well-being, and progress that is grounded in a holistic view of communal life on traditional lands, and places it in contrast with the non-traditional use of traditional lands, as well as the exploitation of Okanagan and Nigerian Indigenous peoples produced by the dominant socio-economic realities controlled by the forces of globalization.
Indigenous environmentalism reflected by Armstrong’s and Agary’s novels views human relationships with the land in terms of an interconnected familial dependence, and not within extreme notions of romanticized abstinence from dependence on land or of capitalist exploitative use of land. In the light of the environmental criticism of Yellow-Yellow and Whispering in Shadows, I propose that both texts may be read as eco-literature. However the ecocritical work of both novels is based, not on Western-identified notions of ecocriticism that often prioritize the non-human through what Graham Huggan and Helen Tiffin describe as “anti-human” environmentalism. Rather, the novels adopt an Indigenous view of humans and non-humans not as competing subjects, but as interdependent and interrelated parts of one entity: the land. Agary’s and Armstrong’s renderings of displacement disrupt dominant utilitarian perceptions of the land by showing that it carries meaning and identity that encompasses culture, social, personal and communal existence. I suggest that a reaffirmation of culturally-grounded relations with the land, a reconnection to land and rebuilding of localized networks between Individuals in eco-devastated communities and between such communities in a form of globalization-from-below provides a strong base for healing, for cultural preservation, and for creative collaborative responses and solutions to globalization. Global minority collaboration and cultural affirmation ultimately has potentials of destabilizing and resisting globalization in sustainable ways. They insulate communities from the hegemony of the dominant Western socio-cultural models.
The close familial ties between Indigenous peoples and the land, coupled with historic, cultural and economic meaning of land to such communities suggest that the loss of traditional land under systems of globalization is a traumatizing and devastating experience for traditional peoples. I argue that such cultural and physical dislocation normalizes a trend of infighting and social instability, which becomes a self-reproducing violence that exacerbates the process of slow genocide: “the emotional and physical harm done to survivors of violence over time that leads to extreme hardship and premature death for many” (Cottam, Huseby, and Lutze 2).
At the heart of Armstrong’s and Agary’s texts are critiques of both environmental and social injustices that emanate from industrial activities on Indigenous traditional lands. The environmental representations of Armstrong and Agary portray Indigenous perspectives that link environmentalism to the cultural, economic and social facets of sustainability. The pan-Indigenous and African environmentalisms represented in Whispering in Shadows and in Yellow-Yellow respectively do not define “environmental concerns” and issues of justice in terms of separate issues that need linking. Rather, they represent the issues of equity, justice, and environmental, spiritual and cultural stability as a one and the same interrelated issue of sustainability.Résumé : Ce qui suit analyse des dispositifs environnementaux, culturels, économiques et rhétoriques qui engendrent le déplacement chez les peuples traditionnels autochtones et du Delta de Niger. Whispering in Shadows de Jeannette Armstrong et Yellow-Yellow de Kaine Agary représentent, de manière similaire, la façon dont les peuples traditionnels autochtones et ceux du Delta de Niger expérimentent les formes contemporaines du génocide lent sous forme de pollution environnementale, ainsi que des déplacements spatiaux. Cette analyse porte un regard particulier sur le sens de la vie, du bien-être et du progrès selon les cultures traditionnelles autochtones qui se basent sur une vision globale de la vie commune sur la Terre ancestrale. Cette cosmologie est mise en contraste avec la culture mondialisée qui encourage notamment l’utilisation non-traditionnelle des terrains et l'exploitation des peuples traditionnels autochtones. L'environnementalisme autochtone reflété dans les romans d'Armstrong et d’Agary considère les relations des humains avec la Terre comme étant une dépendance familiale interconnectée. Cette relation ne se définit pas sur base des notions extrêmes d'abstinence romancée ou de non-dépendance sur la Terre. Elle n’est pas définie non plus par des notions de l'exploitation écocidaire capitaliste de la Terre. À la lumière de la critique environnementale de Whispering in Shadows et de Yellow-Yellow, je propose que les deux textes soient lus comme des éco-littératures. Cependant, le travail des deux romans écocritiques est fondé non sur les notions occidentales de l’écocritique qui privilégient souvent les non-humains dans un environnementalisme que Graham Huggan et Helen Tiffin (2010) décrivent comme étant « antihumain », mais plutôt sur celles qui considèrent les humains et les non-humains non pas comme des sujets en concurrence, mais comme les parties interdépendantes et intimement liées au sein d’une seule entité: la Terre. La conception de la question du déplacement selon Agary et Armstrong déstabilise la perception dominante matérialiste de la Terre en montrant que la Terre est porteuse d’un sens et d'une identité qui peuvent sembler arbitraires, mais qui englobent au fait la culture, la vie sociale, personnelle et communautaire. Je propose qu’une base solide pour gagner la guérison spirituelle, la préservation des cultures marginalisées et la lutte contre la mondialisation se trouve dans la réaffirmation des relations culturellement fondées avec la terre, la reconnexion à la terre et la construction de réseaux localisées entre les individus dans les communautés éco-dévasté, ainsi qu’entre ces communautés, dans une forme de « mondialisation d’en bas. » La collaboration entre les minorités et l'affirmation culturelle ont de la potentielle à déstabiliser et résister la mondialisation de manière durable. Cette globalisation d’en bas isole aussi les communautés de l'hégémonie des modèles socio-culturels dominants venant souvent de l’occident. Les liens familiaux étroits que partagent les peuples autochtones et leur Terre, ainsi que les significations historiques, culturels et économiques de la Terre pour ces communautés autochtones, suggèrent que la perte des espaces terrestres traditionnelles sous les systèmes de la mondialisation est vécue comme une véritable expérience traumatisante et dévastatrice. Cette injustice normalise par la suite une tendance de la violence latérale et de l'instabilité sociale qui devient une violence autoreproductrice et qui maintient le processus historique du génocide lent: «le préjudice émotionnel et physique subi par les victimes de la violence au fil du temps qui mène à la pauvreté extrême et à la mort prématurée pour beaucoup» (ma traduction : Cottam, Huseby, et Lutze 2). Au cœur des textes d'Armstrong et d’Agary se trouvent des critiques contre les injustices sociales et environnementales émanant des activités industrielles dans les espaces traditionnelles autochtones. L’environnementalisme d'Armstrong et d’Agary décrit des cosmologies autochtones qui interagissent entre l'écologie et les aspects culturelles, économiques et sociaux du développement durable. L’environnementalisme autochtone d’Armstrong et l’environnementalisme africain d’Agary, en fonction de leurs cosmologies traditionnelles respectives, ne conceptualisent pas des «préoccupations environnementales» et les questions de justice dans le contexte des questions distinctes qui devraient être liées comme la culture dominante occidentale les conçoivent. Pour eux, les questions de l'équité, de la justice, de la stabilité environnementale, spirituelle et culturelle ne sont qu’une et la même question du développement durable.