Thinking Monstrosity in Western and Global Literatures and Creative Media

Introduction Nizar Zouidi; (Inter)Section I: How Monsters Are Created; Chapter 1. Monstrosity and the Articulation of Fear in Ancient and Contemporary Cultures: An Interview with Edmund Cueva; Chapter 2. Of Heroes and Monsters in the Medieval World: An Interview with Albrech Classen; Chapter 3. “We are just one misguided step away from the precipice of evil”: An interview with Jean-François Vernay; (Inter)section II: Almost Human: Monster Protagonists, difference and Social (In)Justice; Chapter 4. Reflectivity of Tomie’s Idolization: Consuming the Desires and Fears of Asian Beauty Monsters in Relation to Gender and Sexuality; Chapter 5. The Complex Duality of the Female Snake Spirit in Legend of the White Snake; Chapter 6. Witchcraft Hysteria, Folk Horror and Intergenerational Trauma in Abdelhamid Bouchnak’s Dachra (2018); (Inter)Section III: Evil Cosmic Intelligences and the Unmaking of the Human Worlds; Chapter 7. Transforming Biblical Satan in American Cinema; Chapter 8. “Did Heaven Look On and Would Not Take Their Part?”: Demonic Presence and Divine Absence in Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus and Shakespeare’s Macbeth; Chapter 9. Dreams as Banquets: The Consumption of Consciousness in Lovecraft’s “The Shadow Over Innsmouth”; (Inter)section IV: Non-Human Evil and Vulnerable Human Minds; Chapter 10. “A Djinni in the Room”: Depression as a Mythical Entity in Elif Shafak’s Black Milk; Chapter 11. Say no to Drugs: Id, Ego and Superego in Frank Henenlotter’s Brain Damage; Chapter 12. When You Literally Have Two Minds about Artificial Intelligence: The Pathfinder and SAM in Mass Effect: Andromeda; (Inter)section V: Living Death: Animated Dead, Possessed Bodies and Evil Robots; Chapter 13. Robots in Medieval German Literature: Unexpected Science and Technology in Thirteenth-Century German Medieval Romances; Chapter 14. Rebirth Of the Apocalypse: Reconceptualizing Warhammer 40K’s Necrons and Post-Human Consciousness; Chapter 15. Lêthê and Necromancy: The Erasure and Restoration of Minds in the Dead, Reanimated Dead, and Reincarnated Dead; (Inter)Section VI: Lurking Monsters: Territorial Matters and the Representations of the Monstrous; Chapter 16. Of dragon-slayers, treasure guards and sacrificial maidens: Dragons in Berber Folktales and Legends; Chapter 17. Intersectionality in the Water Spirits of The Lord of the Rings and The Adventures of Tom Bombadil; Chapter 18. Mexican American Folkloric Beings in Diana López’s Los Monstruos Series; Chapter 19. Demonic Mirroring in Tanizaki’s “Tattoo,” Honda’s Godzilla, Ishiguro’s Klara and the Sun, and Zeami’s Yamamba: Back to the Future

Biography

Nizar Zouidi is Assistant Professor of English at the University of Gafsa, Tunisia, and Prince Sattam bin Abdulaziz University, Saudi Arabia. His research focuses on character studies in Renaissance drama and across diverse literary periods and genres. He has contributed to The Routledge Companion to Humanism and Literature (2021) and Woke Shakespeare (2024), and has edited collections on villainy in Anglophone literature (2021) and monarchs in world literature and cinema (2023). Nizar is an active participant in international scholarly conferences.

“This volume offers a groundbreaking, interdisciplinary exploration of monsters and intelligence across cultures and media. It is essential reading for anyone interested in the future of cognition, ethics, and creative representation.” ~ James M. VanderVeen, Indiana University South Bend  

"The volume poses a timely question: How do monsters that can think challenge our understanding of our humanity differently than other monsters? This is an important question to ask in a moment when AI is suddenly omnipresent and might be on the brink of general or even superhuman intelligence. This volume ranges from the ancient to the postmodern, considering the cognition of cyborgs and sprites, demons and dragons, angels, AI, and autochthonous abominations. We are living in an excellent time to look back at the deep history of our imaginings of contact with non-human intelligences that might provide models for how we might interact with and ultimately coexist alongside other intelligences." ~  Asa S. Mittman, California State University, Chico