Baer's Golem Redux

An interesting and informative book of relevance to our endeavors:

The Golem Redux: From Prague to Post-Holocaust Fiction
Elizabeth R. Baer
Published by: Wayne State University Press
http://www.wsupress.wayne.edu/books/detail/golem-redux

Subjects: Cultural Studies, Folklore, Jewish Studies, Literary Criticism and Theory, Popular Culture

PAPERBACK
Published: April 2012
ISBN: 9780814336267
Pages: 240
Size: 6x9
Illustrations: 12
$27.95

EBOOK
Published: April 2012
ISBN: 9780814336274


First mentioned in the Book of Psalms in the Hebrew Bible, the golem is a character in an astonishing number of post-Holocaust Jewish-American novels and has served as inspiration for such varied figures as Mary Shelley’s monster in her novel Frankenstein, a frightening character in the television series The X-Files, and comic book figures such as Superman and the Hulk. In The Golem Redux: From Prague to Post-Holocaust Fiction, author Elizabeth R. Baer introduces readers to these varied representations of the golem and traces the history of the golem legend across modern pre- and post-Holocaust culture. In five chapters, The Golem Redux examines the different purposes for which the golem has been used in literature and what makes the golem the ultimate text and intertext for modern Jewish writers.
Baer begins by introducing several early manifestations of the golem legend, including texts from the third and fourth centuries and from the medieval period; Prague’s golem legend, which is attributed to the Maharal, Rabbi Judah Loew; the history of the Josefov, the Jewish ghetto in Prague, the site of the golem legend; and versions of the legend by Yudl Rosenberg and Chayim Bloch, which informed and influenced modern intertexts. In the chapters that follow, Baer traces the golem first in pre-Holocaust Austrian and German literature and film and later in post-Holocaust American literature and popular culture, arguing that the golem has been deployed very differently in these two contexts. Where prewar German and Austrian contexts used the golem as a signifier of Jewish otherness to underscore growing anti-Semitic cultural feelings, post-Holocaust American texts use the golem to depict the historical tragedy of the Holocaust and to imagine alternatives to it. In this section, Baer explores traditional retellings by Isaac Bashevis Singer and Elie Wiesel, the considerable legacy of the golem in comics, Michael Chabon’s The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, and, finally, "Golems to the Rescue" in twentieth- and twenty-first-century works of film and literature, including those by Cynthia Ozick, Thane Rosenbaum, and Daniel Handler.
By placing the Holocaust at the center of her discussion, Baer illustrates how the golem works as a self-conscious intertextual character who affirms the value of imagination and story in Jewish tradition. Students and teachers of Jewish literature and cultural history, film studies, and graphic novels will appreciate Baer’s pioneering and thought-provoking volume.


Elizabeth R. Baer is professor of English and genocide studies at Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, Minnesota. She is co-editor with Hester Baer of The Blessed Abyss: Inmate #6582 in Ravensbrück Concentration Camp for Women (Wayne State University Press, 2000) and co-editor with Myrna Goldenberg of Experience and Expression: Women, the Nazis, and the Holocaust (Wayne State University Press, 2003). She is also editor of Shadows on My Heart: The Civil War Diary of Lucy Buck of Virginia, a finalist for the Lincoln Prize in 1997.

CFP: Complicated Masculinities in Popular Culture (6/28/15)

Of potential interest:

CFP: Complicated Masculinities in Popular Culture

http://pcaaca.org/2015/05/29/cfp-edited-collection-complicated-masculinities-28-jun-2015/

Recent scholarship supports the notion that contemporary American masculinity is complex and problematic. Many scholarly projects seem to reflect a “crisis” perspective and focus on the negative or limiting aspects of changing masculinities. In contrast, this edited collection will focus on the possibilities of multiple, fluid, complex, twenty-first-century masculinities.

Casting a wide net that considers all forms of popular media from film to video games, the collection will consider the ways that categories of race, class, ethnicity, sexuality, gender, as well as the natural and supernatural, affect conceptualizations of male identities. All of these patterns of representation are shaped in response to our global political climate: threats of terrorism, the New Jim Crow, pandemic fears, violence and crime, and women’s increased financial and political empowerment. These elements all affect and complicate depictions of masculinities, but they also open up new possibilities in terms of the ways that they can be represented, constructed, and revised. The ever-evolving world of new media and technology offers new ways of conceptualizing masculinities. People now have more options available for constructing a variety of identities, and a variety of venues open for the performance of them.

Popular culture: contemporary representations of masculinity, preference will be given to critical discussions of twenty-first-century popular culture (2000-2015).

Theoretical Concepts

● Masculinities and Men’s Studies

● Feminisms

● Media Studies

● Gender Studies

● Intersectionality

● Female Masculinities

● Comparative masculinities

● New men/masculinities

● Evolution/Devolution of masculinity

Subjects

● Utopia/Dystopia

● Anti-heroes/Villains

● Post-Apocalyptic

● Monsters/vampires

● Politics/Politicians and the 24-Hour News Cycle

● Performers/Musicians

● Hip Hop Culture

● Professional Sports and Sexuality

● Domestic Violence in the Media

● Sexual Scandals

● Superheroes/Villains

Possible texts

● Anime

● Superhero films

● Television (ie: Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones, Mad Men,

Supernatural.

● Reality TV (ie: Duck Dynasty, Turtle Man)

● Police Procedural Shows (CSI)

● Films (Bromances, Chick Flicks, Buddy Films)

● Advertising

● Music/Performers

● Video Games (Call of Duty, Grand Theft Auto, MMOs, Sports

games)

● Sports (Fantasy Sports, Scandals)

● Internet (Avatars, Online Dating, Social medias)

Other ideas? Please query the editors!

Dr. Merry G. Perry (mperry@wcupa.edu) and

Dr. Cherise A. Pollard (cpollard@wcupa.edu)

West Chester University

Dept. of English, Main Hall

700 High Street

West Chester, PA 19382

Please send the following documents to complicatedmasc@gmail.com by June 28, 2015.

1. A one-page abstract (about 500 words) of your proposed chapter

2. A complete curriculum vita

The editors will notify authors of their abstract’s acceptance status by July 16, 2015.

Several presses have expressed interest in this collection.

Full chapter submissions will be original scholarly work of approximately 6,000-8,000 words in length and be due by Oct. 1, 2015.

Reading The Golem and the Jinni

After a hiatus of many months, I finally finished Helene Wecker's The Golem and the Jinni: A Novel (2013). The book has an interesting premise in that a female golem and a male jinni find each other in New York City in 1899 and become friends. The two main characters are likable and (especially Chava, the golem) easy to relate to, but the story seems to be going nowhere in the middle of the book until the reader learns (in the end) how everything is intricately connected.

Chava, a masterless golem, is not a very typical representation of her class. She seems very human despite her obviously unnatural size, appearance, and physical strength and speed and reminded me very much of the plight of a modern-day Frankenstein's Creature trying to fit into a world that could easy hate and fear her.

Reading List: Godzilla on My Mind

Final post for the night:

Godzilla turned 60 last year, yet this event seems to have been largely unacknowledged by the academic world, despite the appearance of a blockbuster film this past summer. His 50th birthday, however, was commemorated by William Tsutsui's Godzilla on My Mind: Fifty Years of the King of Monsters (2004). The book is both a history of the Godzilla franchise and its popularity as well as a personal account of Tsutsui's own fascination and love for the monster. It is an interesting and insightful book.

GODZILLA ON MY MIND: Fifty Years of the King of Monsters
William Tsutsui

St. Martin's Press
Palgrave Macmillan Trade
October 2004
Trade Paperback
ISBN: 9781403964748
ISBN10: 1403964742
5.60 x 8.45 inches, 256 pages
Includes 24 black-and-white illustrations throughout
$ 18.00

This year, to mark the fiftieth anniversary of his first appearance on the screen, the original, uncut version of Godzilla was released in American theaters to the delight of Sci-Fi and B-Movie fans everywhere. Ever since Godzilla (or, Gojira, as he is known in Japan) crawled out of his radioactive birthplace to cut a swath of destruction through Tokyo, he has claimed a place alongside King Kong and others in the movie monster pantheon. He is the third most recognizable Japanese celebrity in the United States, and his fan base continues to grow as children today prove his enduring appeal. Now, Bill Tsutsui, a life-long fan and historian, takes a light-hearted look at the big, green, radioactive lizard, revealing how he was born and how he became a megastar. With humorous anecdotes, Godzilla on My Mind explores his lasting cultural impact on the world. This book is sure to be welcomed by pop culture enthusiasts, fans, and historians alike.

CFP Panel on Where the Wild Things Are (1/15/14)

A head's up courtesy the American Literature Association (click for pdf).

CALL FOR PAPERS
Children’s Literature Society
American Literature Association
25th Annual Conference
May 22-25, 2014
Hyatt Regency Washington on Capitol Hill
400 New Jersey Avenue N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20001

Panel #2: The Wild Things. Where Are They Now?

Fifty years after the publication of the iconic picture book Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak, the public imagination is still captivated by Max's story of adventure, mischief, power, journey, fantasy, repression, surrealism, and illusion in place and time. The expansion of Sendak's imagination for this title has led to a feature length film and to a popular culture phenomenon based on the impact of his work on readers. Likewise literary criticism in children's literature has continued to explore the importance of this work and its reverberations through the genre of children's literature. In this panel, we invite scholars to broadly explore Where the Wild Things Are expanding their approaches to this text or related texts (e.g., Jon Klassen's This is Not My Hat) considering the fifty years of research, literary, art and philosophical thought since its publication.

Please include academic rank and affiliation and AV requests
Please send abstracts or proposals by Wednesday, January 15, 2014 to Dorothy Clark (Dorothy.g.clark@csun.edu), Linda Salem (salem.sdsu@gmail.com)

Conference details may be found at the American Literature Association web
site: www.americanliterature.org

Cryptid Heroes from the Kroffts

Here's the last set for tonight, two cryptid heroes from Sid and Marty Krofft:

Monster (Super)Heroes and (Super)Villains

Here's a mixed group of shows featuring monsters as superhero-like heroes and villains. Details on all five shows can be found on their respective Wikipedia pages.

Frankenstein's Cat!

Here's a fun one I came across last summer. Its very much in the vein of Beetlejuice with Nine, the eponymous Frankenstein's Cat, providing adventure for his human playmate, Lottie. The series, now out on DVD,  is based on a picture book by Curtis Jobling.

Relative of Kong?

Grape Ape, also from Hanna-Barbera, is a humorous take on the figure of King Kong. Grape is a hero and, instead of a boy, has a canine companion.

Frankenstein Jr.

Another classic Hanna-Barbara series. Again, like Frankenstein, Milton, and Speed Buggy, the robot known as Frankenstein Jr. (voiced by Ted Cassidy) is a created being and, like Godzilla and The King Kong Show, has a boy companion.




Frankenstein Jr. seems also a bit inspired by another series from the 1960s, Gigantor, as revealed below:

Speed Buggy?

Here's another example of a created being, perhaps (?) inspired also by Frankenstein.

Milton the Monster?

Here's a good version of Frankenstein's Monster. I'm not familiar with this series at all, so I will try to post further on it in the future. The first clip is apparently an early opening for the series and includes Milton's origin. The second one must be later in the series' run and focuses on other characters of the show.

Godzilla Animated

Two Godzilla cartoons up next based on the world's best known kaiju. The first from the 1970s features Godzilla and his diminutive cousin Godzooky (a pale imitation of Godzilla's filmic offspring Minya) as heroes aiding a small group of humans. 



A more recent series (based on the American feature film) puts Godzilla in a more ambivalent light, but he (she?) proves to be a hero when confronted with other monstrous creations.

King Kong Cartoons

Two series featuring the cryptid King Kong. Both feature the giant gorilla (Gigantopithecus?) as a heroic figure.

The first series, from the 1960s, introduces a recurrent theme when the preternatural is translated into children's culture and follows the now familar motif of a boy and his monster.



The second, a more recent series, also allies Kong with humans and, like the Godzilla cartoon from the 1980s, grants the monstrous hero superpowers.