Reading List: Vampires and Zombies: Transcultural Migrations and Transnational Interpretations

Monsters Studies now at UP of Mississippi:

Vampires and Zombies: Transcultural Migrations and Transnational Interpretations http://www.upress.state.ms.us/books/1845

Edited by Dorothea Fischer-Hornung and Monika Mueller

240 pages (approx.), 6 x 9 inches, introduction, 9 b&w illustrations, bibliography, index

9781496804747 Printed casebinding $65.00S


Essays that hunt down what happens when the undead go global

Contributions by Katarzyna Ancuta, Daniella Borgia, Timothy R. Fox, Richard J. Hand, Ewan Kirkland, Sabine Metzger, Timothy M. Robinson, Carmen Serrano, Rasmus R. Simonsen, and Johannes Weber

The undead are very much alive in contemporary entertainment and lore. Indeed, vampires and zombies have garnered attention in print media, cinema, and on television. The vampire, with roots in medieval European folklore, and the zombie, with origins in Afro-Caribbean mythology, have both undergone significant transformations in global culture, proliferating as deviant representatives of the zeitgeist.

As this volume demonstrates, distribution of vampires and zombies across time and space has revealed these undead figures to carry multiple meanings. Of all monsters, vampires and zombies seem to be the most trendy--the most regularly incarnate of the undead and the monsters most frequently represented in the media and pop culture. Moreover, both figures have experienced radical reinterpretations. If in the past vampires were evil, blood-sucking exploiters and zombies were brainless victims, they now have metamorphosed into kinder and gentler blood-sucking vampires and crueler, more relentless, flesh-eating zombies. Although the portrayals of both vampires and zombies can be traced back to specific regions and predate mass media, the introduction of mass distribution through film and game technologies has significantly modified their depiction over time and in new environments. Among other topics, contributors discuss zombies in Thai films, vampire novels of Mexico, and undead avatars in horror videogames. This volume--with scholars from different national and cultural backgrounds--explores the transformations that the vampire and zombie figures undergo when they travel globally and through various media and cultures.

Contents (from WorldCat)

pt. 1 MIGRATORY TRANSFORMATIONS --
The Smiling Dead; Or, On The Empirical Impossibility Of Thai Zombies / Katarzyna Ancuta --
"She Loves The Blood Of The Young" The Bloodthirsty Female as Cultural Mediator in Lafcadio Hearn's "The Story of Chugoro" / Sabine Metzger --
Octavia Butler's Vampiric Vision Fledgling as a Transnational Neo-Slave Narrative / Timothy M. Robinson --

pt. 2 NON/NORMATIVE SEXUALITIES --
Appetite For Disruption The Cinematic Zombie and Queer Theory / Rasmus R. Simonsen --
Vampiros Mexicanos Nonnormative Sexualities in Contemporary Vampire Novels of Mexico / Danielle Borgia --
Hybridity Sucks European Vampirism Encounters Haitian Voodoo in The White Witch of Rosehall / Monika Mueller --

pt. 3 CULTURAL ANXIETIES --
Revamping Dracula On The Mexican Silver Screen Fernando Mendez's El vampiro / Carmen Serrano --
The Reanimation Of Yellow-Peril Anxieties In Max Brooks's World War Z / Timothy R. Fox --

pt. 4 CIRCULATING TECHNOLOGIES --
"Doctor! I'm Losing Blood!" "Nonsense! Your Blood Is Right Here" The Vampirism of Carl Theodor Dreyer's Film Vampyr / Johannes Weber --
Disruptive Corpses Tales of the Living Dead in Horror Comics of the 1950s and Beyond / Richard J. Hand --
Undead Avatars The Zombie in Horror Video Games / Ewan Kirkland.



Dorothea Fischer-Hornung, Heidelberg, Germany, is senior lecturer (retired) in the English Department and the Heidelberg Center for American Studies, Heidelberg University. She is the editor of Aesthetic Practices and Politics in Media, Music, and Art: Performing Migration and founding coeditor of the interdisciplinary journal Atlantic Studies Global Currents. Monika Mueller, Bochum, Germany, is senior lecturer of American literature and culture at the University of Bochum, Germany. She is the author of George Eliot U.S.: Transatlantic Literary and Cultural Perspectives.

240 pages (approx.), 6 x 9 inches, introduction, 9 b&w illustrations, bibliography, index

Reading List: Monstrous Progeny

Another Frankenstein book released this summer:

Monstrous Progeny: A History of the Frankenstein Narratives
https://www.rutgersuniversitypress.org/monstrous-progeny/9780813564234

By Lester D. Friedman, Allison B. Kavey

256 pages, 37 photographs, 6 x 9

Paper,August 1, 2016$27.95
978-0-8135-6423-4

Cloth,August 1, 2016$90.00
978-0-8135-6424-1

PDF,August 1, 2016$27.95
978-0-8135-6425-8

EPUB,August 1, 2016$27.95
978-0-8135-7370-0

About This Book

Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel Frankenstein is its own type of monster mythos that will not die, a corpus whose parts keep getting harvested to animate new artistic creations. What makes this tale so adaptable and so resilient that, nearly 200 years later, it remains vitally relevant in a culture radically different from the one that spawned its birth?

 

Monstrous Progeny takes readers on a fascinating exploration of the Frankenstein family tree, tracing the literary and intellectual roots of Shelley’s novel from the sixteenth century and analyzing the evolution of the book’s figures and themes into modern productions that range from children’s cartoons to pornography. Along the way, media scholar Lester D. Friedman and historian Allison B. Kavey examine the adaptation and evolution of Victor Frankenstein and his monster across different genres and in different eras. In doing so, they demonstrate how Shelley’s tale and its characters continue to provide crucial reference points for current debates about bioethics, artificial intelligence, cyborg lifeforms, and the limits of scientific progress. 

 

Blending an extensive historical overview with a detailed analysis of key texts, the authors reveal how the Frankenstein legacy arose from a series of fluid intellectual contexts and continues to pulsate through an extraordinary body of media products. Both thought-provoking and entertaining, Monstrous Progeny offers a lively look at an undying and significant cultural phenomenon.

 

 

Table of Contents

 

Acknowledgments

Introduction: Singing the Body Electric

1         In a Country of Eternal Light: Frankenstein’s Intellectual History

2         The Instruments of Life: Frankenstein’s Medical History

3         A More Horrid Contrast: From the Page to the Stage

4         It’s Still Alive: The Universal and Hammer Movie Cycles

5         The House of Frankenstein: Mary Shelley’s Step Children

6         Fifty Ways to Leave Your Monster

           Notes

           Select Bibliography

           Index

 

 

Reading List: Cambridge Companion to Frankenstein

I was pretty excited to discover this book over the summer. It looks like an invaluable resource. 

The Cambridge Companion to Frankenstein
http://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/literature/english-literature-1700-1830/cambridge-companion-frankenstein?format=PB

Part of Cambridge Companions to Literature
Editor: Andrew Smith

Date Published: August 2016
format: Paperback (Also available in hardcover and as an ebook)
isbn: 9781107450608
length: 288 pages
dimensions: 227 x 151 x 15
contains: 10 b/w illus.

The Cambridge Companion to Frankenstein consists of sixteen original essays on Mary Shelley's novel by leading scholars, providing an invaluable introduction to Frankenstein and its various critical contexts. Theoretically informed but accessibly written, this volume relates Frankenstein to various social, literary, scientific and historical contexts, and outlines how critical theories such as ecocriticism, posthumanism, and queer theory generate new and important discussion in illuminating ways. The volume also explores the cultural afterlife of the novel including its adaptations in various media such as drama, film, television, graphic novels, and literature aimed at children and young adults. Written by an international team of leading experts, the essays provide new insights into the novel and the various critical approaches which can be applied to it. The volume is an essential guide to students and academics who are interested in Frankenstein and who wish to know more about its complex literary history.

• Provides a comprehensive and accessible overview of the novel using a number of different approaches by leading scholars
• Explores themes and theories such as gender and identity, the environment, politics and science of the time
• Looks at Frankenstein in popular culture today including adaptations on stage, television, the graphic novel and in children's literature

Table of Contents

Introduction Andrew Smith

Part I. Historical and Literary Contexts:
1. Frankenstein: its composition and publication Charles E. Robinson
2. Contextualising sources Lisa Vargo
3. Romantic contexts Jerrold E. Hogle
4. The context of the novel Catherine Lanone
5. Scientific contexts Andrew Smith
6. Frankenstein's politics Adriana Craciun

Part II. Theories and Forms:
7. The female Gothic Angela Wright
8. What is queer about Frankenstein? George E. Haggerty
9. Race and Frankenstein Patrick Brantlinger
10. Frankenstein and ecocriticism Timothy Morton
11. The posthuman Andy Mousley

Part III. Adaptations:
12. Dramatic adaptations of Frankenstein Diane Long Hoeveler
13. Frankenstein and film Mark Jancovich
14. Literature David Punter
15. Frankenstein in comics and graphic novels Christopher Murray
16. Growing up Frankenstein: adaptations for young readers Karen Coats and Farran Norris Sands


EditorAndrew Smith, University of Sheffield
Andrew Smith is Reader in Nineteenth-Century English Literature at the University of Sheffield. His 18 books include the forthcoming Gothic Death 1740–1914: A Literary History, The Ghost Story 1840–1920: A Cultural History (2010), Gothic Literature (2007, revised edition 2013), Victorian Demons (2004) and Gothic Radicalism (2000). He edits, with Benjamin Fisher, the award-winning series Gothic Literary Studies and Gothic Authors: Critical Revisions. He also edits, with William Hughes, The Edinburgh Companions to the Gothic series. He is a past President of the International Gothic Association.