Cover: Monsters, 2nd Edition by Andrew J. Hoffman

Monsters

Second Edition  ©2020 Andrew J. Hoffman Formats: E-book, Print

Authors

  • Headshot of Andrew J. Hoffman

    Andrew J. Hoffman

    Andrew J. Hoffman is a Professor of English at San Diego Mesa College, where he teaches courses in grammar, composition, and British Literature. He received his B.A. in English from the University of California at Irvine and his M.A. from Syracuse University. He is the author of Monsters, part of the Bedford Spotlight series, and has contributed to The Arlington Reader, Fourth Edition. In addition, he has authored, edited, or otherwise contributed to numerous other textbooks of grammar, composition, and rhetoric, in both traditional and online formats.

Table of Contents

Introduction for Students

Chapter 1: Why Do We Create Monsters? 
Stephen King, Why We Crave Horror Movies
Mary Shelley, from Frankenstein: The Modern Prometheus
Susan Tyler Hitchcock, Conception
Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan, Why Vampires Never Die 
Chuck Klosterman, My Zombie, Myself: Why Modern Life Feels Rather Undead
Peter H. Brothers, Japan’s Nuclear Nightmare: How the Bomb Became a Beast Called Godzilla
*Clarisse Loughrey, Slender Man: A Myth of the Digital Age
Stephen T. Asma, Monsters and the Moral Imagination

Chapter 2: How Do Monsters Reflect Their Times?
Ted Genoways, Here Be Monsters
Daniel Cohen, The Birth of Monsters
*Anonymous, from Beowulf [[*new translation]]
*Gerald Vizenor, Nannabozho and the Gambler
Matt Kaplan, Cursed by a Bite
W. Scott Poole, Monstrous Beginnings
*Nick Bostrom, Get Ready for the Dawn of Superintelligence
*Isaac Asimov, Robbie

*Chapter 3: How Does Gender Affect the Monster?
*Amy Fuller, The Evolving Legend of La Llorona
Homer, from The Odyssey
*Sophia Kingshill, Reclaiming the Mermaid
Ovid, Battle of the Lapiths and Centaurs
Karen Hollinger, The Monster as Woman: Two Generations of Cat People
*Carol J. Clover, Final Girl
*Judith Halberstam, Bodies that Splatter: Queers and Chainsaws

*Chapter 4: What is the Power of the Monster?
Jeffrey Jerome Cohen, Fear of the Monster Is Really a Kind of Desire
Bram Stoker, from Dracula
Karen Backstein, (Un)safe Sex: Romancing the Vampire
Elizabeth A. Lawrence, Werewolves in Psyche and Cinema
*Robert Louis Stevenson, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
*Erica McCrystal, Hyde as a Monster Villain
*Christian Jarrett, The Lure of Horror

Chapter 5: Is the Monster within Us?
Adolf Hitler, Nation and Race
Patrick McCormick, Why Modern Monsters Have Become Alien to Us
*Thomas Fahy, Hobbes, Human Nature, and the Culture of American Violence in Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood
Anne E. Schwartz, Inside a Murdering Mind
Richard Tithecott, The Horror in the Mirror: Average Joe and the Mechanical Monster
William Andrew Myers, Ethical Aliens: The Challenge of Extreme Perpetrators to Humanism
*Kevin Berger, Why We Still Need Monsters

Sentence Guides for Academic Writers

Product Updates


New and Diverse Reading Selections
13 of the readings (over a third) are new, and represent a broad and diverse range of genres, themes, and voices.   The number of scholarly works has increased, reflecting the growing academic interest in monster studies. Notable new readings include:

  • Clarisse Loughrey, “Slender Man: A Myth of the Digital Age”: A culture reporter explores how the collective imagination of the digital community has updated mythmaking for the modern age with the creation of Slender Man, a tall, faceless being, born in Photoshop.
  • Carol J. Clover, “Final Girl”: A professor of film studies and language introduces the concept of the “Final Girl” — the lone female survivor at the end of a slasher movie — and explores how the character challenges and embodies stereotypes.
  • Nick Bostrom, “Get Ready for the Dawn of Superintelligence”: A philosopher warns that artificial intelligence is inevitable and could become monstrous if humans do not take steps to ensure that the superintelligent programs remain benevolent.

New Chapter Themes and Topics
New themes and topics offer expanded opportunities for considering the monster:

  • Two new chapter themes include Chapter 3: How Does Gender Affect the Monster? and Chapter 4: What is the Power of the Monster? 
  • New readings throughout the book provide new contexts for considering monsters including: mermaids, artificial intelligence, and monsters from other cultures.


Increased focus on rhetoric and composition

  • “Understanding the Text” reading comprehension questions for every selection have been expanded to include a final prompt that asks students to consider the work’s rhetorical approach to the topic, focusing on language, structure, form, and purpose.
  • A new appendix of “Sentence Guides for Academic Writers” offers a practical module to help students develop an academic writing voice by giving them templates to follow in a variety of composition situations.

A brief and versatile reader at an affordable price

Monsters explores questions about the central concept of the monstrous: Why do we create monsters? Are they animal, human, both, or neither? Which of our fears and desires do monsters embody? What can monsters tell us about our cultural and historical moments? How do we cope with the monsters that haunt our imaginations—and our societies? Readings by classic poets, contemporary fiction writers, pop culture critics, philosophers, psychologists, occultists, veterinarians, ethicists, historians, and others take up these questions and more. Questions and assignments for each selection provide a range of activities for students to write about vampires, werewolves, zombies, mermaids, serial killers, classic horror movie monsters, and more strange things that go bump in the night.

The Bedford Spotlight Reader Series is an exciting line of single-theme readers, each reflecting Bedford’s trademark care and quality. An editorial board of a dozen compositionists at schools with courses focusing on specific themes assists in the development of the series. Each reader collects thoughtfully chosen selections sufficient for an entire writing course—about 35 pieces—to allow instructors to provide carefully developed, high-quality instruction at an affordable price. Bedford Spotlight Readers are designed to help students from all majors make sustained inquiries from multiple perspectives, opening up topics such as borders, food, gender, happiness, humor, language, music,  science and technology, subcultures, and sustainability, to critical analysis. The readers are flexibly arranged in thematic chapters, with each chapter focusing in depth on a different facet of the central topic. Instructor support at macmillanlearning.com includes sample syllabi and additional teaching resources.

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Sample Syllabus

ISBN:9781319225049

ISBN:9781319056339

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