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At the Edge of Chaos: Poetics of American Monsters, here and there
Author(s) -
Lepselter Susan
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
journal of historical sociology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.186
H-Index - 26
eISSN - 1467-6443
pISSN - 0952-1909
DOI - 10.1111/johs.12223
Subject(s) - monster , referent , poetics , natural (archaeology) , occult , aesthetics , epistemology , posthumanism , sociology , art , history , philosophy , literature , linguistics , archaeology , medicine , alternative medicine , poetry , pathology
Although we often use the term “monster” in a self‐evident way, what that term signifies is highly varied and sometimes contradictory. What, in fact, is a monster? This paper explores various beings called “monsters,” from obese bodies on reality TV to occult lizard people in conspiracy theories. Taking off from classic anthropological theories of monsters as deconstructed and reassembled natural objects, I question their affective and meaningful associations in contemporary America, and explore why the idea of the monster, which has no stable referent, is nonetheless ubiquitous in a seemingly disenchanted world.