Gift Of The Grotesque

“No other book of the Bible is quite so R-rated. No other book is quite so ugly or grotesque. Judges offers its reader not a roster of angelic saints, but an astonishing tempest of brutality, feces, slaughter, assassinations, conspiracy, genocide, child sacrifice, rage, betrayal, mass graves, gang-rape, corpse mutilation, kidnapping, and civil war.” Gift of the Grotesque offers readers a series of seven theological essays focused on one of the most confusing and challenging books in the biblical canon. Stulac’s captivating style combines sensitive exegesis with broadly accessible meditations on culture, art, music, literature, memoir, theology, and spirituality. Better understood as a companion rather than a biblical commentary, this unusual resource will kickstart the theological imagination of anyone who struggles to understand how the book of Judges points forward to the life and work of Jesus Christ. Dare to follow an experienced biblical scholar into the heart of Israel’s theological Dark Age, and you will encounter there the transformative Word of God in ways you do not expect. The prophetic book of Judges, writes Stulac, “wants to gut you like a fish, because on the far side of that unenviable prospect, it wants you alive like you’ve never lived before.”

"No other book of the Bible is quite so R-rated. No other book is quite so ugly or grotesque. Judges offers its reader not a roster of angelic saints, but an astonishing tempest of brutality, feces, slaughter, assassinations, conspiracy, genocide, child sacrifice, rage, betrayal, mass graves, gang-rape, corpse mutilation, kidnapping, and civil war." Gift of the Grotesque offers readers a series of seven theological essays focused on one of the most confusing and challenging books in the biblical canon. Stulac's captivating style combines sensitive exegesis with broadly accessible meditations on culture, art, music, literature, memoir, theology, and spirituality. Better understood as a companion rather than a biblical commentary, this unusual resource will kickstart the theological imagination of anyone who struggles to understand how the book of Judges points forward to the life and work of Jesus Christ. Dare to follow an experienced biblical scholar into the heart of Israel's theological Dark Age, and you will encounter there the transformative Word of God in ways you do not expect. The prophetic book of Judges, writes Stulac, "wants to gut you like a fish, because on the far side of that unenviable prospect, it wants you alive like you've never lived before."

First published in 1972, this book provides a helpful overview of the grotesque and its use in a number of literary genres including novels, drama and poetry. After providing a historical summary of the term, the book discusses the various defining aspects of the grotesque and its relationship to other terms and modes of literature, such as satire, the comic and parody. The final chapter presents the functions and purpose of the grotesque in literature. This book will be a useful resource for those studying literary theory and literary works which include an element of the grotesque.

Early Christian apocryphal and conical documents present us with grotesque images of the human body, often combining the playful and humorous with the repulsive, and fearful. First to third century Christian literature was shaped by the discourse around and imagery of the human body. This study analyses how the iconography of bodily cruelty and visceral morality was produced and refined from the very start of Christian history. The sources range across Greek comedy, Roman and Jewish demonology, and metamorphosis traditions. The study reveals how these images originated, were adopted, and were shaped to the service of a doctrinally and psychologically persuasive Christian message.

Paul and the Rise of the Slave offers a path to participate in messianic communities in a way that subverts the imposition of Roman power and leads toward positive identity formation for the oppressed.

Life at the prestigious Q High School for Girls in Tokyo exists on a precise social axis: a world of insiders and outsiders, of haves and have-nots. Beautiful Yuriko and her unpopular, unnamed sister exist in different spheres; the hopelessly awkward Kazue Sato floats around among them, trying to fit in.Years later, Yuriko and Kazue are dead — both have become prostitutes and both have been brutally murdered. Natsuo Kirino, celebrated author of Out, seamlessly weaves together the stories of these women’s struggles within the conventions and restrictions of Japanese society. At once a psychological investigation of the pressures facing Japanese women and a classic work of noir fiction, Grotesque is a brilliantly twisted novel of ambition, desire, beauty, cruelty, and identity by one of our most electrifying writers.

Tapping into the uncanny domain of grotesqueries and the occult, Dark Inspiration II is a rich profusion of bone-chilling art created by more than 50 artists worldwide. Childhood reveries, aged folklore and mysteries, and morbid fascination with death and mental pain juxtapose to examine mortal sins, existence and human relationships with the universe. Encompassing illustrations, sculptures, installations, photography and set design, the sensuous collection amasses a variety of dark and mournful expressions that are at once alluring, bewildering and inspirational to peruse.

In this rich interdisciplinary study, Hildegard Hoeller argues that nineteenth-century American culture was driven by and deeply occupied with the tension between gift and market exchange. Rooting her analysis in the period's fiction, she shows how American novelists from Hannah Foster to Frank Norris grappled with the role of the gift based on trust, social bonds, and faith in an increasingly capitalist culture based on self-interest, market transactions, and economic reason. Placing the notion of sacrifice at the center of her discussion, Hoeller taps into the poignant discourse of modes of exchange, revealing central tensions of American fiction and culture.