In the company of wolves : werewolves, wolves and wild children

In the company of wolves presents further research from the Open Graves, Open Minds Project. It connects together innovative research from a variety of perspectives on the cultural significance of wolves, wild children and werewolves as portrayed in different media and genres. We begin with the wolf itself as it has been interpreted as a cultural symbol and how it figures in contemporary debates about wilderness and nature. Alongside this, we consider eighteenth-century debates about wild children -- often thought to have been raised by wolves and other animals - and their role in key questions about the origins of language and society. The collection continues with essays on werewolves and other shapeshifters as depicted in folk tales, literature, film and TV, concluding with the transition from animal to human in contemporary art, poetry and fashion. Front matter Contents List of figures Notes on contributors Preface Acknowledgements Introduction: from preternatural pastoral to paranormal romance Part I: Cultural images of the wolf, the werewolf and the wolf-child Wolves and lies: a writer’s perspective ‘Man is a wolf to man’: wolf behaviour becoming wolfish nature When wolves cry: wolf-children, storytelling and the state of nature ‘Children of the night. What music they make!’: the sound of the cinematic werewolf Part II: Innocence and experience: brute creation, wild beast or child of nature Wild sanctuary: running into the forest in Russian fairy tales ‘No more than a brute or a wild beast’: Wagner the Wehr-wolf, Sweeney Todd and the limits of human responsibility The inner beast: scientific experimentation in George MacDonald’s ‘The History of Photogen and Nycteris’ Werewolves and white trash: brutishness, discrimination and the lower-class wolf-man from The Wolf Man to True Blood Part III: Reinventing the wolf: intertextual and metafictional manifestations ‘The price of flesh is love’: commodification, corporeality and paranormal romance in Angela Carter’s beast tales Growing pains of the teenage werewolf: Young Adult literature and the metaphorical wolf ‘I am the Bad Wolf. I create myself’: the metafictional meanings of lycanthropic transformations in Doctor Who Part IV: Animal selves: becoming wolf A running wolf and other grey animals: the various shapes of Marcus Coates ‘Stinking of me’: transformations and animal selves in contemporary women’s poetry Wearing the wolf: fur, fashion and species transvestism Bibliography Index In the company of wolves presents further research from the Open Graves, Open Minds Project. It connects together innovative research from a variety of perspectives on the cultural significance of wolves, wild children and werewolves as portrayed in different media and genres. We begin with the wolf itself as it has been interpreted as a cultural symbol and how it figures in contemporary debates about wilderness and nature. Alongside this, we consider eighteenth-century debates about wild children - often thought to have been raised by wolves and other animals - and their role in key questions about the origins of language and society. The collection continues with essays on werewolves and other shape shifters as depicted in folk tales, literature, film and TV, concluding with the transition from animal to human in contemporary art, poetry and fashion This volume of essays presents innovative research from a variety of perspectives on the cultural significance of wolves, children raised by wolves, and werewolves, as portrayed in different media and genres. -- .