Image descriptions:
Image one: Happy Halloween
Image two: E-book titled Horror in the Heartland: Strange and Gothic Tales from the Midwest (2017) - synopsis: In Horror in the Heartland, historian Keven McQueen offers a guided tour of terrible crimes and eccentric characters; haunted houses and murder-suicides; mad doctors, body snatchers, and pranks gone comically--and tragically--wrong. From tales of the booming grave-robbing industry of late 19th-century Indiana to the story of a Michigan physician who left his estate to his pet monkeys, McQueen investigates a spooky and twisted side of Indiana, Ohio, Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan. Exploring burial customs, unexplained deaths, ghost stories, premature burials, bizarre murders, peculiar wills and much more, this creepy collection reveals the region's untold stories and offers intriguing, if sometimes macabre, insights into human nature.
Image three: E-book titled Edo Kabuki in Transition: From the Worlds of the Samurai to the Vengeful Female Ghost (2016) - synopsis: Satoko Shimazaki revisits three centuries of kabuki theater, reframing it as a key player in the formation of an early modern urban identity in Edo Japan. Shimazaki argues that kabuki instilled a sense of shared history in the inhabitants of Edo (present-day Tokyo) by invoking “worlds,” or sekai, derived from earlier military tales, and overlaying them onto the present. She then analyzes the profound changes that took place in Edo kabuki toward the end of the early modern period, which witnessed the rise of a new type of character: the vengeful female ghost. Shimazaki’s bold reinterpretation of the history of kabuki centers on the popular ghost play Tōkaidō Yotsiya Kaidan (Ghost Story of Yotsuya in Takaido) by Tsuruya Nanboku IV. Drawing not only on kabuki scripts but also on a wide range of other sources, from theatrical ephemera and popular fiction to medical and religious texts, she sheds light on the development of the ubiquitous trope of the vengeful female ghost and its illumination of new themes at a time when the samurai world was losing its relevance.
Image one: E-book titled Of Corpse: Death and Humor in Folklore and Popular Culture (2003) - synopsis: Laughter, contemporary theory suggests, is often aggressive in some manner and may be prompted by a sudden perception of incongruity combined with memories of past emotional experience. Given this importance of the past to our recognition of the comic, it follows that some “traditions” dispose us to ludic responses. The studies in Of Corpse: Death and Humor in Folklore and Popular Culture examine specific interactions of text (jokes, poetry, epitaphs, iconography, film drama) and social context (wakes, festivals, disasters) that shape and generate laughter.
Image two: E-book titled The Monster in the Garden: The Grotesque and the Gigantic in Renaissance Landscape Design (2015) - synopsis: In The Monster in the Garden, Luke Morgan argues that the monster is a key figure in Renaissance culture. Drawing on sixteenth-century medical, legal, and scientific texts, as well as recent scholarship on monstrosity, abnormality, and difference in early modern Europe, he considers the garden within a broader framework of inquiry. Developing a new conceptual model of Renaissance landscape design, Morgan argues that the presence of monsters was not incidental but an essential feature of the experience of gardens.
Image one: E-book titled Abominable Science!: Origins of the Yeti, Nessie, and Other Famous Cryptids (2013) - synopsis: Throughout our history, humans have been captivated by mythic beasts and legendary creatures. Tales of Bigfoot, the Yeti, and the Loch Ness monster are part of our collective experience. Now comes a book from two dedicated investigators that explores and elucidates the fascinating world of cryptozoology. Daniel Loxton and Donald R. Prothero have written an entertaining, educational, and definitive text on cryptids, presenting the arguments both for and against their existence and systematically challenging the pseudoscience that perpetuates their myths.
Image two: E-book titled Recovering 1940s Horror Cinema: Traces of a Lost Decade (2014) - synopsis: This collection revises, reframes, and deconstructs persistent critical binaries that have labelled 1940s horror as somehow inferior to a “classical” period or “canonical” mode of horror in the 1930s, especially as represented by the monster films of Universal Studios. The book’s four sections re-evaluate the historical, political, economic, and cultural factors informing 1940s horror cinema. Chapters focus on Gothic and Grand Guignol traditions operating in forties horror cinema; 1940s proto-slasher films; the independent horrors of the Poverty Row studios; and critical reevaluations of neglected hybrid films such as The Vampire’s Ghost (1945) and “slippery” auteurs such as Robert Siodmak and Sam Neufield.
Image one: E-book titled Digging Up the Dead: A History of Notable American Reburials (2010) - synopsis: With Digging Up the Dead, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Michael Kammen reveals a treasure trove of fascinating, surprising, and occasionally gruesome stories of exhumation and reburial throughout American history. Taking us to the contested grave sites of such figures as Sitting Bull, John Paul Jones, Frank Lloyd Wright, Daniel Boone, Jefferson Davis, and even Abraham Lincoln, Kammen explores how complicated interactions of regional pride, shifting reputations, and evolving burial practices led to public and often emotional battles over the final resting places of famous figures. Grave-robbing, skull-fondling, cases of mistaken identity, and the financial lures of cemetery tourism all come into play as Kammen delves deeply into this little-known, yet surprisingly persistent, aspect of American history.
Image two: E-book titled The Vampire: A New History (2018) - synopsis: The vampire first came to public prominence in the early eighteenth century, when Enlightenment science collided with Eastern European folklore and apparently verified outbreaks of vampirism, capturing the attention of medical researchers, political commentators, social theorists, theologians, and philosophers. Nick Groom accordingly traces the vampire from its role as a monster embodying humankind's fears, to that of an unlikely hero for the marginalized and excluded in the twenty-first century.
Image one: E-book titled The Dread of Difference: Gender and the Horror Film (2015) - synopsis: This classic film studies text opens with the influential theoretical works of Linda Williams, Carol J. Clover, and Barbara Creed. Subsequent essays explore the history of the genre, from classic horror such as King Kong and Bride of Frankenstein to the more recent Fatal Attraction and Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Other topics covered include the work of horror auteurs David Cronenberg, Dario Argento, and George Romero; the Aliens trilogy; and the importance of gender in relation to horror marketing and reception.
Image two: E-book titled Queer Horror Film and Television: Sexuality and Masculinity at the Margins (2016) - synopsis: This book focuses mainly on representations of masculinity, and gay male spectatorship in queer horror films and television post-2000. In titling this sub-genre “queer horror,” Elliott-Smith designates horror that is crafted by male directors/producers who self-identify as gay, bi, queer, or transgendered and whose work features homoerotic, or explicitly homosexual, narratives with “out” gay characters. In terms of case studies, this book considers a variety of genres and forms from: video art horror; independently distributed exploitation films; queer Gothic soap operas; satirical horror comedies; low-budget slashers; and contemporary representations of gay zombies in film and television.
Image one: E-book titled Alien and Philosophy: I Infest, Therefore I Am (2017) - synopsis: Alien and Philosophy: I Infest, Therefore I Am presents a philosophical exploration of the world of Alien, the simultaneously horrifying and thought-provoking sci-fi horror masterpiece, and the film franchise it spawned. This text features contributions from an acclaimed team of scholars of philosophy and pop culture, led by highly experienced volume editors. Alien and Philosophy explores a huge range of topics that include the philosophy of fear; “just wars;” bio-weaponry; feminism and matriarchs; perfect killers; contagion; violation; employee rights; and Artificial Intelligence. Includes coverage of H.R. Giger’s aesthetics, the literary influences of H.P. Lovecraft, sci-fi and the legacy of Vietnam, and much more.
Image two: E-book titled Silent Hill: The Terror Engine (2012) - synopsis: Silent Hill: The Terror Engine is both a close analysis of the first three Silent Hill games and a general look at the whole series. Silent Hill, with its first title released in 1999, is one of the most influential of the horror video game series. Perron situates the games within the survival horror genre, both by looking at the history of the genre and by comparing Silent Hill with such important forerunners as Alone in the Dark and Resident Evil. Taking a transmedia approach and underlining the designer's cinematic and literary influences, he uses the narrative structure; the techniques of imagery, sound, and music employed; the game mechanics; and the fiction, artifact, and gameplay emotions elicited by the games to explore the specific fears survival horror games are designed to provoke and how the experience as a whole has made the Silent Hill series one of the major landmarks of video game history.
Image one: E-book titled Arts and Terror (2014) - synopsis: This book examines the manifestations of terror in the arts. From classical tragedy to post-9/11 responses, terror – as an emotion, violent act, and state of the world – has been a preoccupation of artists in all genres. Using philosophy, art history, film studies, interdisciplinary arts, theatre studies, and musicology, the authors included here delve into this perennially contemporary theme to produce insights articulated in a variety of idioms: from traditional philosophical humanism to phenomenology to feminism.
Image two: E-book titled Frankenstein: Annotated for Scientists, Engineers, and Creators of All Kinds (2017) - synopsis: The original 1818 text of Mary Shelley’s classic novel, with annotations and essays highlighting its scientific, ethical, and cautionary aspects. Although the novel is most often discussed in literary-historical terms--as a seminal example of romanticism or as a groundbreaking early work of science fiction--Mary Shelley was keenly aware of contemporary scientific developments and incorporated them into her story. In our era of synthetic biology, artificial intelligence, robotics, and climate engineering, this edition of Frankenstein will resonate forcefully for readers with a background or interest in science and engineering, and anyone intrigued by the fundamental questions of creativity and responsibility.
