Unnatural Reproductions and Monstrosity : The Birth of the Monster in Literature, Film, and Media

Much has been written about gender and the monstrous, but sustained engagement with textual manifestations of cultural and unconscious fears and anxieties about "unnatural" reproduction has been limited. This book expands the current discourse on the monstrous reproductive potential of bodies-as well as minds-from a more interdisciplinary and transhistorical framework. While scholarly interest in monsters and the monstrous is certainly not new, studies on monstrous reproduction and birth have tended to be either discipline or period specific, and many are now dated. Drawing from diverse interdisciplinary perspectives in film and media studies, literary studies, history, medicine and women's and gender studies, Unnatural Reproductions and Monstrosity builds upon pre-existing work while engaging more directly with monstrous progeny, as well as with unnatural reproduction(s), which threaten to eclipse the future, cast uncertainty on the present, and reimagine the past. Ultimately, then, the primary contribution of this book lies not only with its extensive treatment of reproductive monstrosity and unnatural parturition, but with the breadth and intriguing continuity that only a wide lens can provide. This book does not attempt to provide a complete historical assessment or catalog of the enduring cultural fascination with the reproductive origins and potential of monsters. Rather, it provides diverse interdisciplinary and transhistorical perspectives with single unifying theme of unnatural reproduction(s), which is unique to the collection, remaining central to the concept of monstrosity and its evolving narrative incarnations. This interdisciplinary collection spanning the areas of history, literature, medical humanities, and film and media studies explores the transhistorical textual fascination with reproductive monstrosity and unnatural parturition. The collection's four sections provide perspective on hyperbolic and monstrous representations of reproduction and birth that speak to anxieties and fears about gender and sexuality, codified through "unnatural" manifestations and their progeny. By focusing not only on the effect of the monstrous, but also on its reproduction in a variety of genres and modes from science to cinema, the essays in this collection offer critical insight into enduring questions about the genesis of monsters and their reproductive potential that have long haunted the world and continue to shape many fears about the future. This book analyzes how fears about unnatural reproduction and monstrous offspring-and their frequent connections to the feminine-have proliferated and propagated across the very texts which are repetitively created and consumed. Unnatural Reproductions and Monstrosity is an important interdisciplinary book for university library collections and scholars working in women's and gender studies, film and media studies, history, literature, and medical humanities. Monsters continue to fascinate—as well as to plague and haunt imaginations. The psychic landscape is peopled with them; the social fabric is woven of them. This persistent, paradoxical repulsion and fascination with monsters and the monstrous begins, however, with causation. With the “birth” of each new monster comes a particular anxiety about its ability to self-replicate, generally through perceived “unnatural” means. The cultural imaginary remains obsessed with the origins and genesis of monsters. From whence do monsters come? How are they created—and more importantly—what is their reproductive potential? The primary contribution of this book lies not only with its extensive treatment of reproductive monstrosity and unnatural parturition, but with the breadth and intriguing continuity that only a wide lens can provide. This book does not attempt to provide a complete historical assessment or catalog of the enduring cultural fascination with the reproductive origins and potential of monsters. Rather, it provides diverse interdisciplinary and transhistorical perspectives with single unifying theme of unnatural reproduction(s), which is unique to the collection, remaining central to the concept of monstrosity and its evolving narrative incarnations. This interdisciplinary collection spanning the areas of history, literature, medical humanities, and film and media studies explores the transhistorical textual fascination with reproductive monstrosity and unnatural parturition. The collection's four sections provide perspective on hyperbolic and monstrous representations of reproduction and birth that speak to anxieties and fears about gender and sexuality, codified through “unnatural” manifestations and their progeny. By focusing not only on the effect of the monstrous, but also on its reproduction in a variety of genres and modes from science to cinema, the essays in this collection offer critical insight into enduring questions about the genesis of monsters and their reproductive potential that have long haunted the world and continue to shape many fears about the future. This book analyzes how fears about unnatural reproduction and monstrous offspring—and their frequent connections to the feminine—have proliferated and propagated across the very texts which are repetitively created and consumed. Unnatural Reproductions and Monstrosity is an important interdisciplinary book for university library collections and scholars working in women's and gender studies, film and media studies, history, literature, and medical humanities. Table of Contents 6 List of Figures 8 Introduction: Our Monstrous Ways • Brandy Schillace and Andrea Wood 12 Part 1: Theorizing Monstrous Genesis 24 1: Renaissance Demons and Posthuman Cyborgs • Alistair Brown 26 2: The Devil Made Me Do It • Joanna Shearer 52 3: Constructing the Vampire • Michael Pickering 80 4: Monsters That Matter • Jesse Stommel 100 Part 2: Repetition and Replication 122 5: Monstrosity, Multiplication, and Monument • Lindsay Ann Reid 124 6: Death, Disease, and Discontent • Emilie Taylor-Brown 144 7: Serial Death and the Zombie • Stephanie Boluk 170 Part 3: Dangerous Maternity and Monstrous Mothers 200 8: Mothering Monsters • K. A. Woytonik 202 9: Hypersaurus Rex • Randy Laist 224 10: Monstrous Mothers and the Ultimate Sacrifice • Danielle Lawson 246 Part 4: Innocence Lost 276 11: “Children of the Night” • Brandy Schillace 278 12: Monstrous Births and Monstrous Children in the Late Nineteenth Century • Alison N. Crockford 306 13: Gender, Genetic Engineering, and Ethics • April D. Miller 338 14: Failed Futurity • Andrea Wood 368 Works Cited 386 Index 416 About the Contributors 430