A Multitude Of Monsters

"A fun romp. The field needs more humorists of this caliber." (Robert Asprin) While seeking a cure for his malady of magicks, the suffering sorcerer Ebenezum and his hapless apprentice are rudely interrupted by militant monsters with a cause.

This is the first study of monstrosity in Jewish history from the Middle Ages to modernity. Drawing on Jewish history, literary studies, folklore, art history and the history of science, it examines both the historical depiction of Jews as monsters and the creative use of monstrous beings in Jewish culture. Jews have occupied a liminal position within European society and culture, being deeply immersed yet outsiders to it. For this reason, they were perceived in terms of otherness and were often represented as monstrous beings. However, at the same time, European Jews invoked, with tantalizing ubiquity, images of magical, terrifying and hybrid beings in their texts, art and folktales. These images were used by Jewish authors and artists to push back against their own identification as monstrous or diabolical and to tackle concerns about religious persecution, assimilation and acculturation, gender and sexuality, science and technology and the rise of antisemitism. Bringing together an impressive cast of contributors from around the world, this fascinating volume is an invaluable resource for academics, postgraduates and advanced undergraduates interested in Jewish studies, as well as the history of monsters.

Existing research on monsters acknowledges the deep impact monsters have especially on Politics, Gender, Life Sciences, Aesthetics and Philosophy. From Sigmund Freud’s essay ‘The Uncanny’ to Scott Poole’s ‘Monsters in America’, previous studies offer detailed insights about uncanny and immoral monsters. However, our anthology wants to overcome these restrictions by bringing together multidisciplinary authors with very different approaches to monsters and setting up variety and increasing diversification of thought as ‘guiding patterns’. Existing research hints that monsters are embedded in social and scientific exclusionary relationships but very seldom copes with them in detail. Erving Goffman’s doesn’t explicitly talk about monsters in his book ‘Stigma’, but his study is an exceptional case which shows that monsters are stigmatized by society because of their deviations from norms, but they can form groups with fellow monsters and develop techniques for handling their stigma. Our book is to be understood as a complement and a ‘further development’ of previous studies: The essays of our anthology pay attention to mechanisms of inequality and exclusion concerning specific historical and present monsters, based on their research materials within their specific frameworks, in order to ‘create’ engaging, constructive, critical and diverse approaches to monsters, even utopian visions of a future of societies shared by monsters. Our book proposes the usual view, that humans look in a horrified way at monsters, but adds that monsters can look in a critical and even likewise frightened way at the very societies which stigmatize them.

First Published in 2002. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Monsters have been spotted everywhere, not just hiding under a child’s bed, lurking in the closet, or springing forth from folkloric tales. Exploring the history, mythology, pop culture, and the world of the supernatural, The Monster Book: Creatures, Beasts, and Fiends of Nature is a comprehensive resource of the monster menagerie from around the world. Examining the lore and legends, as well as the first-person accounts of bizarre freaks of nature and spine-tingling paranormal entities, it details each beast with thorough research, while recounting the facts in an engaging narrative. This fascinating look at monsters investigates nearly 200 beings, beasts, freaks, and fiends, ranging from the renowned and celebrated to the little-known and inglorious, including Werewolves, Bigfoot, the Loch Ness monster, the chupacabra, Mothman, the Abominable Snowman, the Mongolian Death Worm, Living Pterosaurs, Alien Big Cats, Lizard Man, Lake Worth Monster, the Monstrous Monitor, South American Sasquatch, the Jersey Devil, Sea Serpents, Phantom Black Dogs, and much, much more.

Monsters are culturally meaningful across the world. Starting from this key premise, this book tackles monsters in the context of social change. Writing in a time of violent upheaval, when technological innovation brings forth new monsters while others perish as part of the widespread extinctions that signify the Anthropocene, contributors argue that putting monsters at the center of social analysis opens up new perspectives on change and social transformation. Through a series of ethnographically grounded analyses they capture monsters that herald, drive, experience, enjoy, and suffer the transformations of the worlds they beleaguer. Topics examined include the evil skulking new roads in Ancient Greece, terror in post-socialist Laos’s territorial cults, a horrific flying head that augurs catastrophe in the rain forest of Borneo, benign spirits that accompany people through the mist in Iceland, flesh-eating giants marching through neo-colonial central Australia, and ghosts lingering in Pacific villages in the aftermath of environmental disasters. By taking the proposition that monsters and the humans they haunt are intricately and intimately entangled seriously, this book offers unique, cross-cultural perspectives on how people perceive the world and their place within it. It also shows how these experiences of belonging are mediated by our relationships with the other-than-human.

Meet the Wolf Family Eric Logan leads an ancient family of monster hunters, gifted by one god, cursed by another millennia ago. To break his curse, Eric must win the heart of his destined love. He knows Katie Donovan holds his future in her hands the instant they speak. But winning her body and soul proves complicated when monsters threaten his home. And if they learn her true identity, Katie will never be safe again. Eager to get her journalistic career back on track, Katie bargains with her editor, offering an interview with the elusive billionaire and head of Logan International in exchange for the chance to write more hard-hitting stories. Thanks to her hateful psychic ability, Katie knows she can get the interview, even though the Logans never answer reporter’s questions. She doesn’t expect to have her world turned upside down by the gorgeously sexy Eric Logan, whose secrets draw Katie in even more than her Pulitzer dreams. The chemistry between them burns hot and promising, a passion Katie finds impossible to resist. But Eric’s world holds terrifying horrors unlike anything she’s ever encounter. Nightmare monsters and danger at every turn. Even a Pulitzer might not be worth the risks. The more she learns about Eric, though, the harder leaving his world will be. And surviving long enough to find out if she can trust him might be the hardest part of all. Don’t miss the darkly sexy start of this all new paranormal romance series from bestselling author Kat Simons, where monsters lurk in the shadows, and ancient warriors fight for their destined mates. keywords: Paranormal Romance, Dark Fantasy, werewolf and shifter, horror fantasy romance, paranormal and urban fantasy, monsters and myths, paranormal werewolves and shifters romance, fantasy and futuristic romance, Urban Fantasy romance, horror romance, horror fantasy, series paranormal romance, monsters and demons