A Book Review by Caroline Joan S. Picart.
The edited collection aspires to supply a set of ‘tools’ for researchers and students – that is, common approaches and vocabularies for theorizing monstrosity – and then provides an interdisciplinary selection of important readings theorizing monsters and monstrosity….”
The Monster Theory Reader (edited by Jeffrey Andrew Weinstock, University of Minnesota Press) is an ambitious attempt to document, track and project the trajectory of monster studies. All of the chapters have been previously published so what is particularly innovative about this edited collection is the selection and arrangement of materials. Jeffrey Jerome Cohen’s “Monster Culture (Seven Theses)” forms the fulcrum of the edited collection as it names the discipline of “monster studies,” which is both trans-disciplinary and transnational. The edited collection aspires to supply a set of “tools” for researchers and students – that is, common approaches and vocabularies for theorizing monstrosity – and then provides an interdisciplinary selection of important readings theorizing monsters and monstrosity from disciplines ranging from medieval studies to ecocriticism to terrorism studies, to name a few fields.
Of particular significance is the introduction to the edited collection, which attempts to set up a genealogy of monster studies. It starts with definitions of the term, “monster,” and then moves into various categories or sources or examples of monsterization such as teratology (monstrous births), supernatural theories, hybridization, maternal impression, accident, mythology, monstrous races, mythical creatures, cryptids (creatures between mythical beasts and real animals whose existence has not been confirmed by science), psychology, monster politics and finally contemporary monster theory.
The edited collection is composed of four parts. Part I is titled The Monster Theory Toolbox, which are a set of readings that introduce important concepts and terminology and that model approaches that have regular currency in contemporary discussions of monsters and monstrosity. An important anchor to these readings is Sigmund Freud and his concept of the uncanny—the affect elicited when the familiar becomes strange, or conversely, when something strange becomes oddly familiar. Masahiro Mori’s “The Uncanny Valley,” focuses on the way human beings respond to representations of human forms that are almost, but not quite, human, such as dolls and automata. Julia Kristeva’s concept of abjection is featured next, which refers to the process through which the self bifurcates itself from the nonself, and the resultant repulsion elicited by that which was formerly a part of the self but no longer is. Robin Wood‘s essay hinges in particular on the concept of repression, arguing that monsters in horror film reflect the “return of the repressed”; that is, they embody what a particular culture ambivalently fears and desires. Noël Carroll’s book excerpt reflects upon the different kinds of categorical transgressions that precipitate monstrosity. Jack/Judith Halberstam argues that monsters, rejecting any simple binary correspondence with an underlying fear or desire, instead give shape to multiple meanings simultaneously.
An invaluable resource for researchers, teachers and students of monster theory.”
Part II, “Monsterizing Difference” brings together essays considering the “monsterizing” of different populations and the consequences of monstrous rhetoric. These essays explore how difference, whether somatic, religious, sexual, among others, becomes elaborated into monstrosity as a tool of domination. Alexa Wright’s essay explores the “monstrous races” and their placement on medieval maps. Bettina Bildhauer’s essay dissects the monsterization of Jews in medieval culture. With a parallel focus on film, Barbara Creed, building on Kristeva’s concept of abjection, reflects upon the monsterization of the feminine, Harry Benshoff examines the monsterizing of homosexuals, and Annalee Newitz thinks through the monsterizing of race. Finally, Elizabeth Grosz’s essay comes full circle and returns to Part II’s initial focus on monstrous races and somatic difference through her analysis of somatic “freaks.”
Part III, “Monsters and Culture,” incorporates scholarship that analyzes how monsters intersect with social beliefs, attitudes, and trends ranging from religious belief and ideas about the “proper” body to technology, terrorism, and displaced peoples. Stephen T. Asma’s essay analyzes the appeal of monsters and the roles they play in the “moral imagination.” Timothy Beal’s essay links the experience of horror and the fear of the monster to religion and the transcendental. Margrit Shildrick, rounding back to Kristeva, emphasizes the self-other dichotomy inherent in monstrosity and how the abjection of the monster helps to strengthen the boundaries of the self. Michael Dylan Foster shifts our focus to Japan and illustrates how monsters are contemporary products as he meditates upon the relationship between tales of the shape-shifting tanuki and the development of the locomotive in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Weinstock reflects upon the decoupling of ideas of monstrosity from physical difference in the 21st century and the resultant generalization of threat, thus posing the question: what do we do when we can’t identify the monster? Jasbir K. Puar and Amit S. Rai’s essay homes in on the figure of the monstrous terrorist constructed as a foil to 21st century white, heterosexual patriotism. To close Part III, Jon Stratton’s essay explores the monsterization of displaced persons.
Part IV, The Promise of Monsters, juxtaposes essays that illustrate how monsters can be figures not just of fear but also of hope. Erin Suzuki’s essay proposes that monsters of the Pacific enact a kind of cultural critique. Anthony Lioi’s ecocritical approach to monstrosity revolves around the swamp dragon, exhorting us not just to “give dirt its due” but also to form “serpentine alliances” in our defense of natural spaces. Donna Haraway’s essay presents a daring deconstruction of deeply entrenched binaries, with an emphasis on the power dynamics at play in self-other oppositions and an ethical imperative to rethink the monstrous. Finally, Patricia McCormack’s essay proposes that our monsters are “seductive present promises of extending thoughts of human potentiality;” that is, monsters demonstrate to us ways of becoming something other than we are and challenge us to be more just.
The Monster Theory Reader also includes a comprehensive bibliography of additional readings for further research or reflection. Although not all of the essays are equally persuasive, and not all of the sections are equally cohesive, overall, the edited collection is undoubtedly an invaluable resource for researchers, teachers and students of monster theory.
Dr. Caroline Joan S. Picart, Ph.D., J.D.-M.A., Esquire is an Appellate Assistant Public Defender at Florida’s 10th Judicial Circuit, editor to the Fairleigh Dickinson University Press’s Series on Law, Culture & the Humanities, and co-editor to the Fairleigh Dickinson University Press’s Studies in Philosophy & Theology Series. She is a former adjunct professor of law with Florida A & M University and former professor of Philosophy, Film, English & Humanities at Florida State University.