The Cultural Construction of Monstrous Children raises important questions at the heart of society and culture, and through an interdisciplinary, trans-cultural analysis presents important findings on socio-cultural representations and embodiments of the child and childhood. At the start of the 21st, new anxieties constellate around the child and childhood, while older concerns have re-emerged, mutated, and grown stronger. But as historical analysis shows, they have been ever-pres...

Welcome to Vampire Musings. My name is Bertena, and I am the publisher of this macabre book. Since I was a small child, I have loved vampires and even spent most of my college years studying the Lure of the Vampire. From these studies, I met so many wonderful writers, musicians, and academicians who share this love as well. I have noticed that the lure of the vampire comes and goes over time, but those true to the monsters never really leave. Because of this, I wanted to pull together my f...

The Cultural Construction of Monstrous Children raises important questions at the heart of society and culture, and through an interdisciplinary, trans-cultural analysis, presents important findings on socio-cultural representations and embodiments of the child and childhood. At the start of the 21st century, new anxieties constellate around the child and childhood, while older concerns have re-emerged, mutated, and grown stronger. But as historical analysis shows, they have been ...

The Cultural Construction of Monstrous Children raises important questions at the heart of society and culture, and through an interdisciplinary, trans-cultural analysis, presents important findings on socio-cultural representations and embodiments of the child and childhood. At the start of the 21st century, new anxieties constellate around the child and childhood, while older concerns have re-emerged, mutated, and grown stronger. But as historical analysis shows, they have been ...

Choice 2025 Outstanding Academic TitleToxic nostalgia is not a new phenomenon, and instances of an undying past refusing to perish and plaguing the present, can be found throughout history. However, examined in Toxic Nostalgia on Screen, in the early years of the new millennium, it has acquired further meaning and not just applies to a dangerous longing for the past, but a way of being in the present world. Here in our modern time, undead memory is not jus...

This Handbook is a unique encompassing overview of the figure of the Zombie. This project will show that while there are many zombies and many texts about zombies it is still often mistakenly viewed as little more than a sub-genre of Horror. However, its history and multiplicity warrants something far more ambitious in terms of cataloguing and defining its many forms, types and possible readings. Consequently, this Handbook proposes to feature elements of all the many and varied representa...

This book offers an original and innovative study of how the intersection of the Doppelgänger and the Gothic reveals repressed aspects of our singular and collective past, while also serving as a lens to investigate ourselves and our historical moment. The concept of the doppelgänger has seen a resurgence in popular culture, with films and series like The Haunting of Bly Manor, Us, and Dark exploring themes of doubles, twins, and clones. These narratives transfor...

This book explores the captivating intersection of lunar influence and the Gothic imagination, revealing how the moon has shaped narratives of horror, mystery, and transformation across cultures and media. Edited by Elana Gomel and Simon Bacon, this volume delves into the genre of Lunar Gothic, tracing its roots from ancient folklore to contemporary science fiction and horror. Readers will encounter a diverse array of essays that examine the moon's role as both a setting and a character in...

An innovative investigation into how zombie narratives over the past ten years have been specifically leading up to a unique intersection with the world as it exists in the 2020s, this book posits the undead as a vehicle to communicate humanity's pathway into, and out of, the ideological, health and environmental pandemics of our time. Exploring depictions of zombies across literature, poetry, comics, television, film and video games, Simon Bacon brings together this timely intervention in...

Vampires and the Making of the United States in the Twenty-First Century offers a unique and multifaceted study of how vampires on screen have shaped America and how specific environments here have shaped their vampires.Examining the figure of the vampire within the framework of uniquely American environments — both physical and immaterial — the book delves into the questions relating to American geography, identity, racial and ethnic tensions, American colonial past and i...

Despite Disney’s carefully crafted image of family friendliness, Gothic elements are pervasive in all of Disney’s productions, ranging from its theme parks to its films and television programs. The contributors to Disney Gothic reveal that the Gothic, in fact, serves as the unacknowledged motor of the Disney machine. Exploring representations of villains, ghosts, and monsters, this book sheds important new light on the role these Gothic elements play throughout the Disney universe...

Heroic Girls looks at the recent proliferation of young girl heroes in many recent mainstream films and books. These contemporary ‘final’ girls do not just survive but rather suggest that in doing so they have fundamentally changed something about themselves and or the world around them, seeing them become the ‘First Girls’ of this altered reality. The collection brings together a wide range of perspectives and cultural viewpoints that describe many recent narratives that explore ...