Monstrous Textualities

Anya Heise-von der Lippe

Description

Monstrous textuality emerges when Gothic narratives like Frankenstein reflect the monstrous in their narrative structure to create narratives of resistance. It allows writers to meta-narratively reflect their own poetics and textual production, and reclaim authority over their work under circumstances of systemic cultural oppression and Othering. This book traces the representation of other Others through Black feminist hauntology in Toni Morrison’s Beloved (1987) and Love (2003); it explores fat freak embodiment as a feminist resistance strategy in Angela Carter’s Nights at the Circus (1984) and Margaret Atwood’s Lady Oracle (1976); and it reads Atwood’s MaddAddam trilogy (2003–13) and Shelley Jackson’s Patchwork Girl (1995) within a framework of critical posthumanist and cyborg theory. The result is a comprehensive argument about how these texts can be read within a framework of critical posthumanist questioning of knowledge production, and of epistemological exploration, beyond the exclusionary humanist paradigm.

Introduction: Teratologies
Troubling Genealogies: Monstrous Textuality and Narratives of Resistance in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein
I: What Moves at the Margin
2 Haunted Narratives
3 Monstrous Narratives
II: A Female Monster Larger Than Life
Introduction
4 Reframing Narratives
5 Corporeal Discourses
6 ‘A Female Monster Larger than Life’: Fatness and Resistance
III: Hideous Progeny
Introduction
7 Posthuman Reading Practices
8 Posthuman Writing Practices
9 Posthuman Bodies in/as Narrative
Conclusion
Conclusion: ‘The Promises of Monsters’
Notes
Bibliography

Sujets

• Literary Criticism
• Romance
• Gothic

Informations

• Publié par: University of Wales Press
• Date de parution: 15 juin 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781786837608
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

MONSTROUS TEXTUALITIES
SERIES PREFACE
Gothic Literary Studies is dedicated to publishing groundbreaking scholarship on Gothic in literature and film. The Gothic, which has been subjected to a variety of critical and theoretical approaches, is a form which plays an important role in our understanding of literary, intellectual and cultural histories. The series seeks to promote challenging and innovative approaches to Gothic which question any aspect of the Gothic tradition or perceived critical orthodoxy. Volumes in the series explore how issues such as gender, religion, nation and sexuality have shaped our view of the Gothic tradition. Both academically rigorous and informed by the latest developments in critical theory, the series provides an important focus for scholarly developments in Gothic studies, literary studies, cultural studies and critical theory. The series will be of interest to students of all levels and to scholars and teachers of the Gothic and literary and cultural histories.
SERIES EDITORS
Andrew Smith, University of Sheffield
Benjamin F. Fisher, University of Mississippi
EDITORIAL BOARD
Kent Ljungquist, Worcester Polytechnic Institute Massachusetts
Richard Fusco, St Joseph s University, Philadelphia
David Punter, University of Bristol
Chris Baldick, University of London
Angela Wright, University of Sheffield
Jerrold E. Hogle, University of Arizona
Monstrous Textualities
Writing the Other in Gothic Narratives of Resistance
Anya Heise-von der Lippe

UNIVERSITY OF WALES PRESS
2021
Anya Heise-von der Lippe, 2021
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any material form (including photocopying or storing it in any medium by electronic means and whether or not transiently or incidentally to some other use of this publication) without the written permission of the copyright owner except in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act. Applications for the copyright owner s written permission to reproduce any part of this publication should be addressed to the University of Wales Press, University Registry, King Edward VII Avenue, Cardiff CF10 3NS.
www.uwp.co.uk
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978-1-78683-758-5
eISBN 978-1-78683-760-8
The right of Anya Heise-von der Lippe to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 79 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
The publisher has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for any external or third-party internet websites referred to in this book, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.
Cover image: Fernando Cort s, The look of Medusa (2019), 3D print; www.shutterstock.com .
For the ones we lost
C ONTENTS
Acknowledgements
Introduction: Teratologies
Troubling Genealogies: Monstrous Textuality and Narratives of Resistance in Mary Shelley s Frankenstein
Part I: What Moves at the Margin
Introduction
1. Hauntologies
2. Haunted Narratives
3. Monstrous Narratives
Conclusion
Part II: A Female Monster Larger Than Life
Introduction
4. Reframing Narratives
5. Corporeal Discourses
6. A Female Monster Larger than Life : Fatness and Resistance
Conclusion
Part III: Hideous Progeny
Introduction
7. Posthuman Reading Practices
8. Posthuman Writing Practices
9. Posthuman Bodies in/as Narrative
Conclusion
Conclusion: The Promises of Monsters
Notes
Bibliography
A CKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This monster has been a long time in the making and I am very grateful to a number of people who have contributed insights, comments and support over time. First and foremost, I would like to thank Russell West-Pavlov and Ingrid Hotz-Davies in T bingen for taking on this project at extremely short notice and for their very helpful comments on the final version. I am immensely grateful to Sabine Sch lting at the Freie Universit t Berlin for her support and critical feedback on various drafts of my chapters. I also wish to thank Armin Geraths and Monika Walther at the Technische Universit t in Berlin for suggesting that I might take on a PhD project. My first two years of research were funded by a NaF G grant, for which I am indebted to the grant commission and the city of Berlin.
Many of the ideas that made it into the final version began as humble conference papers and I wish to thank my ICFA (International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts) and IGA (International Gothic Association) peeps for numerous great discussions and for being their weird and wonderful selves. Two amazing Ginas - Regina Hansen in Boston and Gina Wisker in Brighton - both provided invaluable feedback on chapters and I am very grateful to them, as well as to Isabella van Elferen and Fred Botting for providing advice, support and the occasional much-needed pep talk.
I would like to thank the series editors of Gothic Literary Studies for accepting this project for publication and the team at University of Wales Press for being not only super efficient but also, once again, a pleasure to work with. I also wish to thank Alexandra Leonzini for her willingness to proofread yet another monstrous manuscript, and Sarah Meaney for her careful copy-editing. Any errors still remaining in the final version are entirely my own.
Last, but certainly not least, I wish to thank my family for their support of my academic endeavours and, as always, H for understanding how important it was for me to finish this and for seeing it through with me to the end.
Berlin, September 2020
Excerpt(s) from LADY ORACLE by Margaret Atwood, Copyright 1976, by O. W. Toad Ltd. Reprinted by permission of Emblem/McClelland Stewart, a division of Penguin Random House Canada Limited. Reproduced with permission of Curtis Brown Group Ltd, London, on behalf of O. W. Toad; Copyright O. W. Toad 1976. All rights reserved.
Excerpts from MADDADDAM: A NOVEL by Margaret Atwood, copyright 2014, by O. W. Toad. Used by permission of Nan A. Talese, an imprint of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission of McClelland Stewart, a division of Penguin Random House Canada Limited. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc.
Excerpt(s) from ORYX AND CRAKE: A NOVEL by Margaret Atwood, copyright 2003, by O. W. Toad, Ltd. Used by permission of Doubleday, an imprint of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission of McClelland Stewart, a division of Penguin Random House Canada Limited. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc.
Excerpts from NIGHTS AT THE CIRCUS by Angela Carter, published by Vintage. Reproduced by permission of The Random House Group Ltd. 1984.
Excerpts from BELOVED by Toni Morrison, published by Vintage. Reproduced by permission of The Random House Group Ltd. 1978.
Excerpts from LOVE by Toni Morrison, copyright 2003, by Toni Morrison. Used by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved.
Excerpts from PATCHWORK GIRL by Shelley Jackson, published by Eastgate Systems, used by permission of Eastgate Systems. 1995.
Photograph of THE YOUNG FAMILY, 2002, by Patricia Piccinini, reprinted courtesy of the artist, Tolarno Galleries, and Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery.
Introduction: Teratologies

Derrida will come home mumbling about a she-monster who beset him in the woods. 1
In Western traditions of knowledge production, it is customary to begin at the beginning. But where does one start with an argument about the possibility of troubling such linear narratives and hierarchical epistemologies? And, if these concerns are taken seriously, is there even a subject position from which to speak and raise these questions?
In A Theoretical Framework for the Critical Posthumanities , Rosi Braidotti draws attention to a necessary critique of the idea of the humanist subject position based on its structural anthropocentrism and in-built Eurocentrism . As Braidotti argues, this would shift the point of reference away from the authority of the past and onto accountability for the present . 2 Her methodological guidelines for such a process include:

cartographic accuracy, with the corollary of ethical accountability, and the combination of critique with creativity, including a flair for paradoxes and the recognition of the specificity of art practices. Other criteria are: non-linearity, the powers of memory and the imagination and the strategy of de-familiarization. 3
I will trace these elements of posthumanist methodology in my discussions of literary work by Toni Morrison, Angela Carter, Margaret Atwood and Shelley Jackson in the three main parts of this study. My main argumentative focus lies in monstrous figures that emerge from and draw attention to the margins of cultural conceptualisations of the human and their destabilisation of an exclusive humanist subject position. The monsters origins are connected to discursive practices of normalisation, categorisation and definition that exclude an Other , yet they are not created by these practices in an orderly, rationalist manner. Instead, monsters creep from the cracks and appear at the edges of such discourses. Monsters are abjected and marginalised in human processes of identity construction. The monstrous is always a matter of perspective, as its perception as an Other depends on a normalised, human subject position - but the monster also throws humanness into relief because it emphasises the constructedness of all identity 4 and makes us question the nature of the human . The monster s position at the borders of the possible , 5 thus, also makes it a powerful o