Taking Mary Shelley's novel as its point of departure, this collection of essays considers how her creation has not only survived but thrived over 200 years of media history, in music, film, literature, visual art and other cultural forms. In studying monstrous figures torn from the deepest and darkest imaginings of the human psyche, the essays in this book deploy the latest analytical approaches, drawn from such fields as musicology, critical race studies, feminist studies, queer theory and psychoanalysis. The book interweaves the manifold sounds, sights and stories of monstrosity into a conversation that sheds light on important social issues, aesthetic trends and cultural concerns that are as alive today as they were when Shelley's landmark novel was published 200 years ago.

Taking Mary Shelley's novel as its point of departure, this collection of essays considers how her creation has not only survived but thrived over 200 years of media history, in music, film, literature, visual art and other cultural forms. In studying monstrous figures torn from the deepest and darkest imaginings of the human psyche, the essays in this book deploy the latest analytical approaches, drawn from such fields as musicology, critical race studies, feminist studies, queer theory and psychoanalysis. The book interweaves the manifold sounds, sights and stories of monstrosity into a conversation that sheds light on important social issues, aesthetic trends and cultural concerns that are as alive today as they were when Shelley's landmark novel was published 200 years ago.

Popular music and masculinity have rarely been examined through the lens of research into monstrosity. The discourses associated with rock and pop, however, actually include more 'monsters' than might at first be imagined. Attention to such individuals and cultures can say things about the operation of genre and gender, myth and meaning. Indeed, monstrosity has recently become a growing focus of cultural theory. This is in part because monsters raise shared concerns about transgression, subjectivity, agency, and community. Attention to monstrosity evokes both the spectre of projection (which invokes familial trauma and psychoanalysis) and shared anxieties (that in turn reflect ideologies and beliefs). By pursuing a series of insightful case studies, Scary Monsters considers different aspects of the connection between music, gender and monstrosity. Its argument is that attention to monstrosity provides a unique perspective on the study of masculinity in popular music culture.

This collection offers new and insightful perspectives on Ingmar Bergman's work as a film and theatre director as well as writer of fiction. Ingmar Bergman's rich legacy as a film director and writer of classics such as The Seventh Seal, Scenes From a Marriage, and Fanny and Alexander has attracted scholars not only in film studies but also of literature, theater, gender, philosophy, religion, sociology, musicology, and more. Less known, however, is Bergman from the perspective of production studies, including all the choices, practices, and routines involved in what goes on behind the scenes. For instance, what about Bergman's collaborations and conflicts with film producers? What about his work with musicians at the opera, technicians in the television studio, and actors on the film set? What about Bergman and MeToo? In order to throw light on these issues, art practitioners such as film directors Ang Lee and Margarethe von Trotta, film and opera director Atom Egoyan, and film producer and screenwriter James Schamus are brought together with academics such as philosopher and film scholar Paisley Livingston, musicologist Alexis Luko, and playwright and performance studies scholar Allan Havis to discuss Bergman's work from their unique perspectives. In addition, Ingmar Bergman at the Crossroads provides, for the first time, in-depth interviews with Bergman's longtime collaborators Katinka Faragó and Måns Reuterswärd, who both have first-hand experience of working intimately as producers in film and television with Bergman, covering more than 5 decades. In an open exchange between individual and institutional perspectives, this book bridges the often-rigid boundaries between theoreticians and practitioners, in turn pointing Bergman's studies in new directions.

The Encylopedia of the Gothic features a series of newly-commissioned essays from experts in Gothic studies that cover all aspects of the Gothic as it is currently taught and researched, along with the development of the genre and its impact on contemporary culture. Comprises over 200 newly commissioned entries written by a stellar cast of over 130 experts in the field Arranged in A-Z format across two fully cross-referenced volumes Represents the definitive reference guide to all aspects of the Gothic Provides comprehensive coverage of relevant authors, national traditions, critical developments, and notable texts that define, shape, and inform the genre Extends beyond a purely literary analysis to explore Gothic elements of film, music, drama, art, and architecture. Explores the development of the genre and its impact on contemporary culture

Global Popular Music: A Research and Information Guide offers an essential annotated bibliography of scholarship on popular music around the world in a two-volume set. Featuring a broad range of subjects, people, cultures, and geographic areas, and spanning musical genres such as traditional, folk, jazz, rock, reggae, samba, rai, punk, hip-hop, and many more, this guide highlights different approaches and discussions within global popular music research. This research guide is comprehensive in scope, providing a vital resource for scholars and students approaching the vast amount of publications on popular music studies and popular music traditions around the world. Thorough cross-referencing and robust indexes of genres, places, names, and subjects make the guide easy to use. Volume 1, Global Perspectives in Popular Music Studies, situates popular music studies within global perspectives and geocultural settings at large. It offers over nine hundred in-depth annotated bibliographic entries of interdisciplinary research and several topical categories that include analytical, critical, and historical studies; theory, methodology, and musicianship studies; annotations of in-depth special issues published in scholarly journals on different topics, issues, trends, and music genres in popular music studies that relate to the contributions of numerous musicians, artists, bands, and music groups; and annotations of selected reference works.

From the 'Monster of Ravenna' to the 'Elephant Man', Myra Hindley and Ted Bundy, the visualisation of 'real', human monsters has always played a part in how society sees itself. But what is the function of a monster? Why do we need to embody and represent what is monstrous? This book investigates the appearance of the human monster in Western culture, both historically and in our contemporary society. It argues that images of real (rather than fictional) human monsters help us both to identify and to interrogate what constitutes normality; we construct what is acceptable in humanity by depicting what is not quite acceptable. By exploring theories and examples of abnormality, freakishness, madness, otherness and identification, Alexa Wright demonstrates how monstrosity and the monster are social and cultural constructs. However, it soon becomes clear that the social function of the monster – however altered a form it takes – remains constant; it is societal self-defence allowing us to keep perceived monstrosity at a distance. Through engaging with the work of Michel Foucault, Julia Kristeva and Canguilhem (to name but a few) Wright scrutinises and critiques the history of a mode of thinking. She reassesses and explodes conventional concepts of identity, obscuring the boundaries between what is 'normal' and what is not.

Emerging from depths comes a series of papers dealing with one of the most significant creations that reflects on and critiques human existence. Both a warning and a demonstration, the monster as myth and metaphor provides an articulation of human imagination that toys with the permissible and impermissible. Monsters from zombies to cuddly cartoon characters, emerging from sewers, from pages of literature, propaganda posters, movies and heavy metal, all are covered in this challenging, scholarly collection. This volume the third in the series presents a marvellous collection of studies on the metaphor of the monster in literature, cinema, music, culture, philosophy, history and politics. Both historical reflection and concerns of our time are addressed with clarity and written in an accessible manner providing appeal for the scholar and lay reader alike. This eclectic collection will be of interest to academics and students working in a range of disciplines, such as cultural studies, film studies, political theory, philosophy and literature studies.

Practical Musicology outlines a theoretical framework for studying a broad range of current musical practices and aims to provoke discussion about key issues in the rapidly expanding area of practical musicology: the study of how music is made. The book explores various forms of practice ranging from performance and composition to listening and dancing, from historically informed performances of Bach in the USA to Indonesian Dubstep or Australian musical theatre, and from Irish traditional music played by French musicians from Toulouse to Brazilian thrash metal or K-Pop. Drawing on neuroscience, cognitive psychology, ecological approaches in anthropology, and the social construction of technology and creativity, Zagorski-Thomas uses a series of case studies and examples to investigate how practice is already being studied and to suggest a principle for how it might continue to develop, based around the assertion that musicking cannot be treated as a culturally or ideologically neutral phenomenon.

Technology, a word that emerged historically first to denote the study of any art or technique, has come, in modernity, to describe advanced machines, industrial systems, and media. McCutcheon argues that it is Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel Frankenstein that effectively reinvented the meaning of the word for modern English. It was then Marshall McLuhan’s media theory and its adaptations in Canadian popular culture that popularized, even globalized, a Frankensteinian sense of technology. The Medium Is the Monster shows how we cannot talk about technology—that human-made monstrosity—today without conjuring Frankenstein, thanks in large part to its Canadian adaptations by pop culture icons such as David Cronenberg, William Gibson, Margaret Atwood, and Deadmau5. In the unexpected connections illustrated by The Medium Is the Monster, McCutcheon brings a fresh approach to studying adaptations, popular culture, and technology.